Guyana has been thrown into political turmoil following the arrest and possible extradition to the United States of the country’s main opposition leader just two months after he emerged as the surprise contender in the presidential election that kept incumbent Irfaan Ali in power.
Azruddin Mohamed, 38, and his father, Nazar Mohamed, 73, two of Guyana’s wealthiest figures thanks to their gold mining empire, were arrested on 31 October in the capital, Georgetown, in response to a formal extradition request from the US government.
Facing 11 charges in a Florida court – including money laundering, bribery and tax evasion – they were released later the same day after posting bail of 150,000 Guyanese dollars each (about £547 or $719.95), but must report to the court weekly and will face a new hearing on Monday.
Mohamed has claimed they are victims of political persecution by Ali’s government: “The government is fully behind the sanctions and has agents working in the US that they are in talks with,” he told local media.
Mohabir Anil Nandlall, Guyana’s attorney general, said the case was a “legal obligation” arising from the country’s international commitments – a 1931 extradition treaty between the UK and the US remains in force in Guyana, which became independent from Britain in 1966.
The case has become particularly emblematic at a time when relations between the Caribbean nation and the US have taken on new energy significance, with American companies leading the oil exploration that could soon make Guyana the world’s largest producer per capita.
“It’s a situation where the status quo in Guyana is being challenged,” said Peter Wickham, a political scientist and director of a polling company in the Caribbean.
Mohamed founded a party and announced his candidacy just three months before the presidential election, breaking with the country’s long-standing two-party system that has traditionally pitted the president’s PPP/C, broadly backed by the Indo-Guyanese population, against the APNU, generally supported by Afro-Guyanese voters.
Mohamed urged Guyanese to reject “tribal voting” and, running on a populist, anti-establishment platform, promised to push for renegotiation of the oil deal – despite the country’s newly discovered oil wealth, more than half of its population still lives in poverty.
“He hoped to become a kind of balance of power for whoever won the election, but the result ended up being better than he expected,” Wickham said.
The incumbent Ali won, and his party secured 36 of the 65 seats in congress. But unlike in previous elections, it was not the APNU that emerged as the main opposition force – it won only 12 seats – but Mohamed’s party, with 16.
Last Monday, three days after Mohamed was arrested and released on bail, he was sworn in alongside the rest of the new congress. He arrived in the Lamborghini at the centre of an alleged mail fraud case against him, in which he is accused of submitting a false $75,300 invoice for a vehicle said to have cost $680,000.
Although the US extradition request was issued last October, the investigation into Mohamed and his father began earlier, and the indictment is said to cover offences committed between 2017 and 2024.
In June 2024, a shipment containing about $5.3m in gold bars sent from Guyana by Mohamed’s Enterprise was seized at Miami international airport. That same month, the Mohameds were sanctioned by the US Department of Treasury on charges of gold smuggling, evading more than $50m in taxes owed to the Guyanese government and bribing local public officials.
At a press conference last week, vice-president Bharrat Jagdeo – who led the country between 1999 and 2011 – said the extradition request came from Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state.
“You see his signature there? ‘Marco Rubio,’” he said. “It’s not a junior man in Florida … that’s the seriousness [of it] … We are part of a treaty. We are part of an international community that believes people must pay for their crimes,” said Jagdeo.
Mohamed and his lawyers declined to comment to the Guardian, but have previously denied wrongdoing.
In addition to describing the case as political persecution, his legal team has told local media that some of the offences listed in the US indictment are not crimes in Guyana and therefore Mohamed should not be subject to extradition. The lawyers said they intend to challenge the case at every level, including the constitutional court and, ultimately, the Caribbean court of justice.
Wickham said the case is likely to drag on. “While it goes on, he [Mohamed] remains a member of parliament … and I think he will continue to make life as difficult as he can for the government in his role as opposition leader,” he said.
