US-sanctioned ‘Shell’ Mohamed mulls legal action for being blocked from doing business in Guyana

Last Updated on Wednesday, 5 March 2025, 14:41 by Denis Chabrol

Well-known city businessman, Nazar “Shell” Mohamed on Tuesday said legal action was likely against the government for violating his constitutional right to work in Guyana, after they and their companies were sanctioned by the United States (US) last year for alleged tax evasion in their home country.

Appearing on “Team Mohamed’s” Facebook page just hours after the Maritime Administration (MARAD) ruled out granting future permission for several foreign-flagged vessels that were being acquired by his business for coastal voyages because of the sanctions, Mr Nazar accused unnamed persons in the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) administration of piling unnecessary pressure on him. “The Constitution protects me, as a citizen of Guyana. I can do whatever business I want to do in my country. No one can stop me from doing any business in my country because the sanction does not dictate that I cannot do business in my country,” he said.

He did not address any of OFAC’s allegations that his son and Mohamed’s Enterprise evaded Guyana’s tax on gold exports and defrauded the Guyanese government of tax revenues by under-­declaring their gold exports to Guyanese authorities. OFAC alleged that between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise omitted more than 10 thousand kilograms of gold from import and export declarations and avoided paying more than $50 million in duty taxes to the Government of Guyana.

There are allegations of the bribery of customs officials to falsify import and export documents, as well as to facilitate illicit gold shipments; bribery of Guyanese government officials to ensure the undisrupted flow of inbound and outbound personnel that move currency and other items on behalf of Azruddin and Mohamed’s Enterprise. They have not been charged by Guyanese police or the Guyana Revenue Authority and the Guyana government earlier this year said it was still awaiting information from the US to aid local investigators.

Mr Nazar said his company was in the process of changing the foreign-flagged vessels to Guyana-flagged vessels. He cast some doubt over whether that change of registration would be approved. “I don’t know if it’s going to happen with what’s going on,” he said.

Another concern raised by the businessman was the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission’s (GGMC) has been stalling for several months, taking annual payment for 80,000 acres of mining land for the first time in 14 years. “Many, many months have now passed and he hasn’t gotten back to me so we are contemplating to maybe go to court on this issue,” he said. He said after his company was granted a quarry licence, someone else was granted a licence to mine for gold long after his company had obtained its green light.

Days after the US sanctions, the Bank of Guyana revoked his company’s foreign exchange dealer’s (cambio) licence but, Mr Mohamed signaled that decision was unfair. “Our cambio licence has been taken away without any hearing, without any justification. I don’t want to said that this is a personal attack but I guess people can draw their own inference,” he said.

However, OFAC, in announcing the sanctions last year, said one of the implications is that “financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned entities and individuals may expose themselves to sanctions or be subject to an enforcement action. The prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person, or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.”

As a result of the sanctions, the US Treasury Department says all of the Mohameds property that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked.

The sanctions also mean that US persons or within or transiting the US are prohibited from transactions that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons.

He accused several unnamed “very senior people within the political structure” had been deliberately misrepresenting what the sanction by the United States Treasury Department’s Office for Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) and ostracising him and his son, Azruddin Mohamed. Since the sanctions were announced that he, his son and their companies could no longer do business with American companies, he said they have all cut ties. To the contrary Mr Nazar described ‘Daily News’ and ‘Guyanese Critic’ as “two surrogates of the ruling administration” and said a lot of persons associated with the incumbent administration have had their visas revoked.

While rejecting as “ludicrous” claims that anyone associating with them, including taking pictures with his son, would be sanctioned and would lose their visas, Mr Nazar said the sanctions have bitten his businesses very hard. “To say it has not affected us is an understatement. Indeed, it has affected us greatly because our entire business actually came to a standstill,” he said.

Mr Nazar said all his life he had been associated with the PPP and worked hard to secure that party’s late Founder-Leader Dr Cheddi Jagan’s victory in 1992. “I just don’t understand where this hostility towards us is coming from. I have supported other political parties financially but I have always been very close to the People’s Progressive Party,” said Mr Nazar, a former local councillor in the Eccles-Ramsburg Neighbourhood Council said.

He said “people very close to this administration” had set up a teenage girl to fabricate a sexual offence allegation against Mr Azruddin in the hope of it stimulating a public outcry to lead to police action. “I’m very disturbed about it because this is no joke,” he said.