Allegations of money-laundering against gold dealer…$100M in taxes lost in three months

Apr 11, 2017 Court Stories, Features / Columnists, News

More details are coming out that would raise alarming questions over the lax attention paid by regulators to transactions of embattled gold dealer, Saddiqi ‘Bobby’ Rasul.
Over a three-month period, September to November last year, Rasul’s gold dealing company, SSS Mineral Trading Enterprises, conducted over $7.67B in sales with the Guyana Gold Board (GGB) representing over 31,790 ounces sold.
Of that, he used a company named R. Mining Inc. that he reportedly controls, to process and sell to GGB over 19,500 ounces alone.
It is believed that that quantity of gold is what was purchased from legit miners but passed through R. Mining to make it appear as mined gold.
Under arrangements, mining companies are only obliged to pay five percent royalties upfront.
They are not obligated to pay an additional two percent tax like small miners are mandated to do.
As a result, over that three-month period, an estimated $95.5M was lost in taxes (two percent of the gross value to GGB).
Why the GGB, and the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) never questioned how one mining company managed to produce over 19,500 ounces of gold over a three-month period is the big question now. Not even the large scale producers – and there are two of them currently in the country – managed to meet that when they first started.
Under tough anti-money laundering regulations passed by Government, regulators have to be on the lookout for suspicious transactions and report these.
In the case of Rasul, there are no indications that any of R. Mining’s transactions raised any red-flags, not from GGB or GGMC, which monitor the mining areas.
Hard Rock Mining, a company that has been named in also selling gold to Rasul, yesterday made it clear that the only connection it has with the gold dealer is the selling of gold.
The company, in distancing itself, insisted that it has no other relations, contrary to what was reported before.
It is believed that the use of R. Mining to sell the gold as mined gold was deliberately done to escape the two percent tax.
Rasul, who became one of the biggest dealers by the end of last year, was last week slapped with several fraud charges. He was accused of, in late March, depositing a number of bounced cheques at the Bartica branch of the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry and later withdrawing over $950M.
The female bank manager, who has since been sent home, reportedly did not conduct the necessary checks to ensure that Rasul’s cheques that he issued off his Citizens Bank accounts had the necessary funds.
Rasul has been placed on $3M bail. Investigations are continuing against the bank manager who was arrested after she turned herself in to police investigators last week at Eve Leary.
Police have search Rasul’s properties in Kitty, Prashad Nagar, Charity on the Essequibo coast, and Bartica, Region Seven, where he has his base.
A number of staffers have been questioned and a small amount of cash seized.
However, investigators have not been able to put their hands on the majority of that $950M that was withdrawn from GBTI.
The Ministry of Natural Resources has since announced that it has asked a new board of directors of GGB to investigate whether any staffers had colluded with Rasul and his companies.
The matter has also been handed over to the police’s Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) to probe the money laundering allegations.

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Allegations of money-laundering against gold dealer…$100M in taxes lost in three months

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