The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Guyana has rejected as “grossly inaccurate and mischievous” claims by the Vigilant Political Action Committee (V-PAC) that its 2024 Annual Report exposes more than $25 billion in “suspicious” vehicle transactions and a “broken system” for car imports.
In a statement responding to a post on V-PAC’s Facebook page, the FIU said it appeared the group’s leader “did not read the FIU 2024 Annual Report properly or he is unable to interpret the data and tables in the report,” particularly those dealing with Threshold Transaction Reports (TTRs).
V-PAC had argued that the FIU report showed over 7,000 suspicious vehicle-related transactions in 2025 and more than 5,600 in 2024, each valued at $2 million or more, which it said pointed to more than $25 billion in questionable activity in the auto sector.
The movement claimed this reflected abuse of duty-free and remigrant concessions, allowed a “small elite” to access luxury vehicles largely tax-free, and contributed to “two Guyanas” – one for the wealthy and another where ordinary citizens pay “two to three times” the value of their cars in import taxes.
However, the FIU said V-PAC had fundamentally misrepresented the nature of the data, stressing that the figures cited relate to TTRs, not Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs).
On pages 18 and 19 of its 2024 Annual Report, the FIU explains that TTRs are records of financial transactions that meet or exceed legally specified thresholds and are routinely submitted by reporting entities such as banks, insurance companies, and auto dealers.
A TTR must be filed “for any cash or, in certain specified cases, non-cash transaction…within a given month that meets or surpasses the established threshold limit,” as set out under Guyana’s anti–money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation.
“These transactions on their own are not deemed to be suspicious, just for being reported to the FIU,” the Unit emphasised, adding that such data is used primarily for strategic and operational analysis and to monitor patterns of high-value activity across sectors.
With respect to auto dealers, the FIU noted that this category of reporting entity is required to submit a TTR for every transaction of $2 million or more, meaning every sale of a used or reconditioned vehicle at or above that price triggers a mandatory report.
The Annual Report notes that auto dealers (listed in the “Used Car Dealerships” category) submitted 7,074 TTRs in 2024, up from 5,629 in 2023, an increase of about 26 per cent, against the backdrop of rapid growth in motor vehicle sales and registrations.
The FIU said that growth is “understandable and in line with the tremendous year-over-year growth in the sales and registration of motor vehicles locally,” and not, as suggested by V-PAC, evidence of systemic wrongdoing in the sector.
By contrast, genuinely suspicious activity is captured in a separate dataset: Suspicious Transaction Reports. The Annual Report shows that the FIU received 208 STRs in 2024, up from 180 in 2023, with many relating to various types of fraud and structuring of transactions.
STRs, the report explains, are filed when a reporting entity suspects or has reasonable grounds to suspect that funds or a transaction are linked to the proceeds of crime, money laundering, terrorism financing or related offences, and must be submitted within three days of forming that suspicion.
The FIU stressed that conflating TTRs with STRs, as it says V-PAC has done, leads to “misinterpretations, erroneous conclusions and gross misinformation being disseminated.”
“The FIU, therefore, implores the public to ensure they take time to read and understand the contents of its Annual Report before making pronouncements,” the Unit cautioned.
The 2024 Annual Report was laid in the National Assembly on November 3 by Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, and is publicly available on the FIU’s website.
