Undercover operations on gold smuggling yielding success – GS Jagdeo

After announcing that stringent penalties will be enforced for the smuggling of gold out of Guyana, General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has highlighted that these efforts are bearing fruit.

Dr Jagdeo made these remarks during his weekly press conference at Freedom House on Thursday.

Recently, three Chinese nationals, two males and one female, were arrested at a City Hotel after an inter-agency intelligence-led operation busted the trio allegedly involved in gold smuggling, money laundering and other illegal activities.

Subsequently, a wanted bulletin was issued for a Chinese national for money laundering and other serious offences.

The General Secretary said that this was the result of months of work done by intelligence personnel.

“One of the major rings that involved Chinese nationals that were buying a lot of the gold and smuggling this gold out, particularly to Suriname, that ring has been busted out of the undercover work that’s been going on for a while,” he posited.

Dr Jagdeo noted that when the government got hold of the information, several actions were taken almost immediately to begin to uncover the major players in the illegal activities.

“Maybe six months ago or so, I said to you we are paying serious attention to gold smuggling because when the issue of decline in declarations came about, the President had several meetings with participants in the sector…and we said there’ll be consequences to people,” the General Secretary explained.

Further, Dr Jagdeo lambasted the media for their poor coverage of the fruits of the labour of intelligence officials in finding those directly involved.

“The undercover operation has started yielding the individuals now and it was a major, major operation that has gone on for nearly six months. But it goes without much notice in the newspapers because it doesn’t support the narrative that this government [has not] been looking into all of these issues,” Dr Jagdeo argued.

A little over a month ago, Dr Jagdeo in his capacity as Vice President, stressed the need for the strengthening of the gold exportation system as well as the ramping up of charges and penalties to tackle gold smuggling.

He noted that concerted efforts have enabled local authorities to pinpoint new tactics being used by gold smugglers.

Some of these efforts include the establishment of a task force and a rigorous assessment of gold declarations being made from time to time. The task force, which is comprised of the Attorney-General, the Minister of Finance, the Commissioner-General of the GRA, the Head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the Governor of the Central Bank and representatives of the Guyana Gold Board, have already found loopholes in the existing regulations and have begun work to tighten the loose ends.