Latest update November 29th, 2024 1:00 AM
Alleged Ponzi schemers remanded after slapped with multiple charges
Yuri Garcia- Dominguez and his wife, Ateeka Ishmael, who are said to be a part of a multi-billion Ponzi scheme, were yesterday slapped with 19 fraud charges before two separate magistrates.
The duo was granted a total sum of $7.8M bail by one of the magistrates but remanded by the other.
Remanded: Yuri Garcia- Dominguez and his wife Ateeka Ishmael, being escorted from court
Some of the protesters in front of court yesterday
Garcia-Dominguez and his wife were arraigned before Magistrate Marissa Mittleholzer in the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court, with their attorneys, Dexter Todd and Glenn Hanoman.
When the matter was called, 13 fraud charges were read to the couple. The charges alleged that between May and July 2020, the couple obtained a total sum of $24.7M from the 13 victims under false pretense. Magistrate Mittleholzer granted the defendants bail in the sum of $3.9M each and the matter was adjourned to September 18, 2020.After those charges were read, the defendants then made a virtual appearance before Magistrate Alisha George of the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Courts.
Magistrate George read six fraud charges to the duo- those charges allege that they obtained over $1M from the victims under false pretense.
However, Magistrate George remanded the defendants to prison and the matter was adjourned to September 21, 2020.
While the matter was going on in court, over 100 protesters were gathered in front of the court with placards.
The placards stated: ‘Release Yuri’, ‘Grant Yuri and Ateeka license’, ‘Not a Ponzi scheme, we stand with Yuri and Ateeka’.
The protesters were also chanting “Free Yuri” and “Grant Yuri bail”.
During an interview with reporters in the court compound, attorney-at-law Todd said: “We have advocated that these matters are private in nature, all the complaints that were made forms part of a contract…what the State has done is to impose themselves as a third party to a private contract and they are forcibly allowing the course of a criminal nature which is not to be.”
The other lawyer, Hanoman, had this to say: “The Government is instrumental in closing the accounts of the company, so in effect, they prevented the money from coming back but encourage people to make report about not being paid.”
The Government recently announced a multi-sectoral investigation against Garcia-Dominguez and Ishmael, who are officials of Accelerated Capital Firm Inc.
The investigation was launched after authorities said they received a number of complaints against the company.
Attorney General, Anil Nandlall, recently disclosed that the company has little or no assets in Guyana.
According to a letter from the AG to one of the defendant’s lawyers, as a result of multiple complaints received and reports to the Guyana Police Force (GPF), a team of State agencies has been assembled to inquire into the operations of Accelerated.
Reports revealed that over 17,000 Guyanese were in limbo, after investing over US$20M.
A number of the persons reportedly sold their properties or gave their life savings to the company.
Authorities said that they found little evidence of money leaving Guyana via the normal channels for overseas.
Accelerated told investors it was actively involved in the foreign exchange trading and promised as much as 40 percent returns every few weeks.
However, authorities, including the Guyana Securities Council, the Bank of Guyana and the Financial Intelligence Unit had warned about the operations.
In fact, Accelerated had had been operating for about two years but only applied for a broker’s licence a few weeks ago.
There are details emerging that pastors and other religious leaders were actively involved in recruiting clients or new “investors” for Accelerated.
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