By GHK Lall- SN’s lead online caption of Wednesday, October 8, 2025 shocked and staggered. If any Guyanese is not shocked and staggered by “US seized big gold shipment from Mohameds on the same day OFAC sanctions unveiled”, then they are made of much better stuff than I am. The OFAC sanctions were unveiled on June 11, 2024, deep into the heart of the PPP Government’s return to office. What does this say? Whatever it says, even in the slightest, at its lightest, it reveals so much, it turns many postures upside down.
The sanctioned and now indicted Mohameds have a world of trouble enveloping their heads, and from the weight of the allegations alone. Using a very rough estimate, that US$5.3 million bust is the equivalent of over 1600 ounces of gold approximately, heated into a solid number of gold bars. Who in the agencies of the state, and how many such agencies, stood over the processing, facilitating, and moving of such an amount of gold?
Who was bypassed? Who was in the know, and who knew what to do when shipments such as these are part of a day’s work? In thinking of this, I cannot help but to recall that promise made in the ecstasies of August 2020, which still ring to this day: “dismantle onerous rules and regulations.”
Guyanese know who said that back then, and look at what I had warned about since then. One is what has come to us in that SN headline mentioned. In a nutshell, free up any system too much, and there is the risk of a blowup and blowout. I think that US$5.3 million represents both.
Enlightening how a day a date makes a difference. The seizure by U.S. authorities of the US$5.3 million shipment of gold bars occurred on June 11, 2024. Perhaps, that gives even more fodder to the defenders of the PPP Government, to tie that one to my name. It would not surprise at all, if those that the PPP Government uses to attack the few Guyanese who expose the kind of government that it is, still strenuously seek to attach that June 11, 2024 shipment to me (GHK Lall) four and a half years after my last day at the Guyana Gold Board.
Why not? The effort at deflection from the corruption that has infested the PPP Government at numerous levels has some utility. It distracts an unknowing population. It dilutes (at least that is the hope) from the stench that surrounds a government that count some of the strangest bedfellows among its intimate friends. Of this let Guyanese be assured: friends of that feather are many in the PPP architecture, in its DNA, come to think of it. I have no such friends.
Separately, I recall also the issue of gold shipment seals reused for criminal objectives. Long before I set foot in the Gold Board, that was a suspected part of gold export operations. Several state agencies stand over those shipments when they are weighed and sealed. Now, there is a mystery of who did see, but pretended not to, and those who saw but looked away, said nothing. This was not limited to any single exporter. There is still another recollection that is again shared with interested Guyanese, those who can think straight.
One member of the Gold Board staff was removed due to multiple allegations and charges of serious misconduct. That former staff member was still before the courts, only to be rehired by the current government. The charges later quietly and efficiently slipped off the court docket. Now, that is clean governance of a special kind, I would say. There were those who collected expensive gifts, who made a living from such gratuities, through selling both information and themselves. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have been recruited to work for this government. It is a forgiving one, as one leader was pleased to inform the true believers.
It is likely that he has a prearranged question for his next public address, so as to disown the damage done to the PPP Government, and dump that ticking time bomb somewhere else, and on someone else. I wonder who that will be. In Guyana, I have learned that anything that is unscrupulous is possible, can be expected from a government that is made of that substance.
For five years, PPP leaders have marshalled the forces of the government to pin something, anything, on me. In the process, something extraordinary resulted. Take note of how the dirt and coverup always come right back onto the shoulders of the PPP Government itself. Plus. those who have allowed themselves to be ensnared in criminal activities for going onto to almost three decades now. This, the PPP clique has indicted itself. Try indicting me.
