Opposition Leader’s boat detained after he failed to produce ‘papers’

Last Updated on Wednesday, 26 August 2026, 7:24 by Denis Chabrol

After an extensive search that turned up nothing illegal,  police detained Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed’s ‘go-fast’ boat after he could not produce the registration and certificate of fitness of the vessel as well as the captain’s license.

In response, he told the officer “you’ll get that at a later date. You can’t get that now” after which the officer said the vessel would be detained at the Guyana Defence Force’s Coast Guard headquarters. The officer said the documents should be on the vessel. After Mr Mohamed could not produce the keys for the vessel, the officer ordered police to search his person for them but none was found.

Mr Mohamed later Wednesday morning said the vessel’s hull was damaged while in police custody for about four hours.

WIN parliamentarian Tabita Sarabo-Halley said the captain with the information was not present at the marine wing of the Guyana Police Force to where the vessel was escorted by police and coast guard. “The captain left. The captain is not present to give it to you,” she said. Police said the vessel refused to stop when it entered the Demerara River and was later intercepted at Mr Mohamed’s dock at Friendship, East Bank Demerara. Ms Sarabo-Halley said their decision not to make the captain available is to protect him from being victimised because on a previous occasion another captain was eventually unable to get another job due to his association with Mr Mohamed.

She accused the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC)-led Guyana government of using the police and Coast Guard to go target them on their return from Port Kaituma and Mabaruma where they met with survivors and relatives of the deceased of last month’s MV Barima river tragedy. “It is quite clear that the PPP was embarrassed today by what the residents of Port Kaituma and Mabaruma said about the fact that the government has done absolutely nothing for them since the tragedy,” she said. “On our way back, they concocted a whole plan and a whole lie that there was some chase on the waters and somebody was intercepted and there were sirens and somebody got away,” she said. She said the wider plan is to prevent him from travelling around Guyana, having prevented him from flying on domestic aircraft and made efforts to stop him from travelling by road “so that he can’t get to the people”. After Mr Mohamed and his father, Nazar “Shell” Mohamed were sanctioned by the United States in June 2024 for alleged tax evasion linked to his gold smuggling operation, domestic airlines refused to fly him around the country and the Guyana Revenue Authority also attempted to seize his vehicles for alleged false declaration and evasion of import taxes.

The law enforcement agent said he would not engage in “any cross-talk” with Mr Mohamed and he had an opportunity at his premises to produce the required documents. Mr Mohamed described the demand by the police as “nonsense” and “you don’t know about the law”. He argued that the boat was not in use at the time it was intercepted at the dock to which the officer replied that the boat was in the water.

Mr Mohamed that his boat was the same vessel that he used last month to assist in the recovery of several bodies after the MV Barima ferry sank with more than 179 passengers and crew members. Seventy-six persons were rescued and the bodies of 72 others were recovered.