Sunday, April 19, 2020
Ramjattan, Harmon among APNU+AFC officials being investigated in the U.S for money laundering
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| Joe Harmon on Yacht in Miami where he has several joint business ventures along with Brian Tiwari |
Joseph Harmon, Khemraj Ramjattan and at least four other high-ranking officials of the APNU+AFC are the subjects of a money-laundering investigation being conducted by a leading law enforcement agency in the U.S.
Documents seen by this outfit indicate that Ramjattan, Harmon and the others had been under the radar of the US agency since August of 2016. The coalition officials held senior positions within the government and began to amass large amounts of wealth around this time through kickbacks and other forms of corruption. Harmon bought properties in the US in that year and the source of some the funding was traced to back to a Chinese company under the radar of US authorities.
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| Khemraj Ramjattan and his family |
Ramjattan also set up a US bank account around this time and several suspicious transactions were flagged by a US regulatory agency causing him to be on the radar of the authorities as well.
Thinking that they could fool US law enforcement officials who were on their trail unknown to them, they placed assets in the names of relatives and at least two local businessmen.
Thinking that they could fool US law enforcement officials who were on their trail unknown to them, they placed assets in the names of relatives and at least two local businessmen.
US authorities got a big break in 2019 when two individuals were busted for money laundering and provided significant information on the dealings of the APNU+AFC officials. This led to the arrest of a Guyanese businessman at JFK airport with a suitcase containing US$2M. The businessman implicated Harmon and two other Guyanese businessmen. He also provided information on several other leading coalition officials.
Since its ascension to office in 2015, the APNU+AFC coalition government has been dogged with revelations of massive corruption scandals. Joseph Harmon, David Patterson, Raphael Trotman, Khemraj Ramjattan, Cathy Hughes and Simona Broomes are just some of the names of officials that are alleged to have benefitted from corruption schemes which cost the treasury billions of dollars.
