US-sanctioned businessman wants to be president but hides from public scrutiny – Jagdeo

General Secretary of the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) has criticised US-sanctioned businessman Azruddin Mohamed for avoiding public scrutiny, despite actively seeking votes in the upcoming election.

Jagdeo made the assertion during his press conference on Thursday last in response to a question from the media.

He said “everything about him is curated: they take the images, photoshop them and then post the images, they take the videos and cut them and post them on their page and then anyone else who comments on their page, they delete the comments or block the people so you only get positives. It’s a carefully curated image to mislead.”

The PPP General Secretary pointed to the lack of press conferences from Mohamed, who has recently launched a political party to contest in the September 1 elections.

“Just imagine a person vying to be the President of Guyana and has no press conference so far,” he said.

“Imagine this guy is running a campaign for months now and wouldn’t even face the press once,” Jagdeo further noted.

Jagdeo further referenced Mohamed’s attempt at subjecting himself to public scrutiny via an interview with Trinidad’s Ian Alleyne.

During that interview, Alleyne was interrupted from questioning Mohamed by his supporters. In the video posted on YouTube, Mohamed was asked if he is “buying” supporters but instead of answering the question, the US-sanctioned businessman called on his supporters led by popular social media personality Odessa Primus who proceeded to attack Alleyne and his questions.

Meanwhile, Jagdeo, who is also the country’s Vice President, rejected claims being made by the US-sanctioned businessman that he is being targeted by the PPP because he is running for office.

Jagdeo emphasised that the government had to take actions against Mohamed and his family after the US sanctions were announced in order to protect the country, noting that the sanctions issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is the highest.

“Imagine if we didn’t take away the cambio licence and they could continue buying US currency and trading that, you know what will happen? The country will be sanctioned. That means you…can’t use your credit card, you can’t make a purchase online…we can’t settle any payment with US entities, with Visa or Mastercard…it shuts down the country and our payment system,” Jagdeo explained.

According to Jagdeo, “they’re trying to paint this picture that they’re being victimised by the PPP because he’s running for president.”

But he noted that, “long before he even announced he had intentions to run, we had to take away these things from him.”

Meanwhile, Jagdeo also reminded that the sanctions against the Mohamed are only in relation to one of the allegations made by Reuters in its bombshell 2023 report.

In the report published one year before the US-sanctions were issued, Reuters stated that the Mohameds are being investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security and other U.S. agencies, on suspicions of smuggling Colombian cocaine and illegally mined Venezuelan gold to the United States, Europe and the Middle East.

The report added that the Mohameds are also suspected of laundering money for drug traffickers and criminals, including sanctioned Russian nationals operating in the region, according to one of the intelligence reports.

Jagdeo highlighted that the US “only sanction so far because of the gold smuggling. It doesn’t mean that the other aspects of that Reuters story has disappeared, the drug smuggling part and the laundering of money for Russian mafia. So, we have to see how that plays out.”