U.S. report on money laundering and corruption, a “cut and paste” from 2019-Jagdeo

Apr 27, 2025 News

-says local media only focused on negatives

Kaieteur News- Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has casually dismissed the findings of the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), which highlighted that corruption and money laundering are issues critically affecting Guyana, saying that it is a cut and paste from 2019.

In spite of the numerous issues highlighted in the report, Jagdeo said that if the report is thoroughly examined it is a positive for Guyana. “When you learn to read these reports…reports that have a continuous bias, it’s systemic and often written by lazy people sometimes because they just cut and paste.”

U.S. report on money laundering and corruption, a “cut and paste” from 2019-Jagdeo

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo

He argues that the comments on wages and salaries are the same as a few years ago, and he does not believe that dealing with drug dealers has anything to do with wages and salaries.

Jagdeo’s reasoning is that if this were true, some of the wealthiest people would be the leanest people in the country.

“Because they’re wealthy, that means they don’t need to do illegal things? It’s not…it’s not correlated. Some of [the] wealthy people may become wealthy, and they continue to do because of illegal activities, and they continue to grow their wealth because of illegal activities,” he told reporters at his weekly press conference on Thursday.

The Vice President said that in the United States of America the salaries are substantially higher for immigration and customs officers, but corruption still exists. “So, what would they say there, right here, we had a man who was found by the US government, who was well paid, he was working in the embassy, who was in a visa racket with the locals.”

Jagdeo also pointed out that despite the level of law enforcement there is a substantial number of drugs entering U.S. borders.

“So, we can say that the biggest failure of law enforcement is in the United States, because with the volume of drug that get in there to create this, what they Republicans and President Trump has called an epidemic of deaths associated with, with, with drug, illegal drug, coming in from from Mexico and other places,” he said.

On April 23, this publication reported that high poverty and low-paying jobs in the public sector have led many Guyanese into the narcotics trade, which contributes significantly to increased crime and corruption, the United States government has said.

In its 2025 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR), the U.S. Department of State noted that in 2024, Guyana seized more than four metric tons (MT) of cocaine, in cooperation with US law enforcement, at an airstrip near its border with Venezuela – the largest drug seizure in Guyana’s history – and interdicted one semi-submersible off Guyana’s coast with 2.3 MT of cocaine.

“Despite growing oil wealth and the government’s increased efforts, the public sector – including law enforcement and customs officials – remains underpaid. Coupled with a lack of adequate resources and shortcomings in the legal system, this allows traffickers to exploit government systems and move illicit drugs through Guyana,” the report stated.

The U.S. Department of State said that the government can fight drug trafficking by enhancing law enforcement and customs capability through port security improvements, intelligence operations with regional and international partners, implementing stronger anti-corruption measures, and strengthening its legislation relating to drug trafficking sentencing, to make it less attractive.

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corruption, money laundering, President, US

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