Cuban national Yuri Garcia Dominguez and his wife Ateeka Ishmael were last Thursday found guilty of two offences arising out of their Ponzi scheme several years ago and sentenced to 28 months and 16 months respectively by Magistrate Sunil Scarce, sitting at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court
According to a statement from the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) the two were found guilty of operating a Ponzi scheme and carrying on a business without registering with the Guyana Securities Council.
It not clear if the two were in court at the time as last year the Guyana Police Force had issued an arrest warrant for Dominguez as he had not complied with the conditions of his bail of reporting weekly to the police.
According to the statement, for the offence of operating a ponzi scheme, Dominguez was fined $1,000,000 and sentenced to one year imprisonment while Ishmael was fined the same amount and sentenced to one year imprisonment.
Both were fined $100,000 for the offence of carrying on a business without registering with the Guyana Securities Council but Dominguez was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment while Ishmael received six months.
It was between 18th May 2020 and 16th October 2020, at Coldingen, East Coast Demerara, the two carried on the business of a securities company by holding themselves out as brokers, without being registered with the Guyana Securities Council.
The defendants were represented by attorney-at-law Eden Corbin while SOCU was represented by Darin Chan, DSP Neville Jeffers and Sergeant Aaron Daniels.
SOCU in the statement said it viewed the convictions as an important step in the enforcement of Guyana’s financial crime laws, particularly in matters involving investment schemes, unregistered financial activity, and the protection of members of the public from unlawful financial operations.
“SOCU remains committed to investigating and prosecuting financial crimes, securities-related offences, suspected money laundering, and proceeds of crime offences. The Unit will continue to advance matters of this nature before the courts in keeping with Guyana’s wider anti-money laundering, countering the financing of terrorism, and financial crime framework,” SOCU said.
Dominguez, a 34-year-old naturalized Guyanese of Cuban origin, and Ishmael, 32, had been at the centre of a high-profile financial scandal linked to Accelerated Capital Firm Inc. (ACFI). The couple was slapped with nearly 80 charges related to fraudulent activities, with accusations that they orchestrated a Ponzi scheme that defrauded approximately 17,000 Guyanese out of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Court documents indicated that Dominguez and Ishmael received bail totaling about $30 million after multiple appearances before various magistrates in 2020. The charges against them included conspiracy to commit a felony and operating a pyramid scheme, with victims alleging they lost substantial sums of money after investing in ACFI, an unlicensed financial entity.
Despite the allegations, the couple had reportedly been making efforts to reimburse defrauded investors. Their then attorney, Dexter Todd, had informed a Georgetown magistrate’s court that a list of people who had received repayments had been submitted to the CID for verification.
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