GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) – United States (US) sanctioned, Guyanese billionaire businessman, Azruddin Mohammed, says he will contest Guyana’s presidential elections scheduled for September 1 this year.

President Irfaan Ali over the last weekend announced the date for the regional and general election and in a video statement on his Facebook page, Mohammed said he was entering the race.

“I am stepping forward today as a young man with a vision for a new Guyana,” he said.

“It is with great honour and humility that I officially declare my candidacy for President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana in the upcoming elections this September 1, 2025,” he added.

“I stand ready to raise my hand, put my shoulder to the task, and dedicate my mind and heart to building a world-class Guyana where every citizen is treated equally, not through buzzwords but through the hard work of building trust and forging genuine harmony,” he said in the video message.

In June last year, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it had sanctioned members of one of Guyana’s wealthiest families, a Guyana government official as well as a company for their roles in public corruption in the country.

In addition to imposing the sanctions on Nazar Mohamed, his son, Azruddin, their company, Mohamed’s Enterprise, and government official, Mae Thomas, OFAC has designated two other entities, Hadi’s World and Team Mohamed’s Racing Team, for being owned or controlled by Mohamed’s Enterprise and Azruddin, respectively.

It said that these individuals and entities are sanctioned pursuant to Executive Order13818, which targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.

Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, said then that the “action underscores our commitment to holding accountable those who seek to exploit Guyana’s underdeveloped gold sector for personal gain”.

The US authorities say gold is one of Guyana’s main exports, but it remains a highly fractured industry with small-scale gold mining operations in Guyana occupying a majority share of the country’s gold production.

They said Azruddin 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. Between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise allegedly omitted more than 10 thousand kilograms of gold from import and export declarations and avoided paying more than US$50 million in duty taxes to the government of Guyana.