Gov’t to battle gold smuggling, boost prosecutions

Anil Nandlall

In the face of a risk assessment that gold smuggling is one of the highest money laundering threats in Guyana, Attorney General Anil Nandlall SC says that the government plans to take measures to crack down on the crime and to boost prosecutions.

In an interview with the Sunday Stabroek following several reports in this newspaper on the findings of the second Money Laundering (ML) and Terrorist Financing (TF) National Risk Assessment (NRA), Nandlall highlighted a number of recommendations that have been made in an action plan to address gold smuggling.

“With respect to possible gold smuggling, the action plan has recommended revisions to the Tax Act and mining laws and regulations to bring greater clarity and practicality to the licensing procedures and regulation of gold and diamond dealers. Once this is finalized, it is expected that a more effective enforcement programme will be implemented to identify and sanction persons operating without the requisite licence,” he asserted.