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Wales gas project contractor accused of revolving corruption and financial deception
…massive delays, corrupt executives, overpriced services milking Guyana’s treasury
(Kaieteur News) – With shaky financing masked with an American flag, two Venezuelans quietly made their way into Guyana, taking virtual control of the nation’s treasury through a deal that landed the consortium almost unlimited access to funds to complete a disastrous gas project mired in controversy and complete blackout on information.
As this newspaper peels back the layers of Lindsayca Inc., a trail of broken contracts, massive debts, and a “revolving door” of corruption has come to light that should have disqualified the group from touching a single cent of Guyanese taxpayer dollars.
While Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo and head of the Gas-to-Energy (GTE) Taskforce, Winston Brassington continue to tout the “American excellence” of the project, the truth is far more sinister. Lindsayca is not the powerhouse they claim. It is a family-run operation led by Venezuelan nationals Hector Fuentes Guimare and Jesus Fuentes Guimare—two brothers with a track record of leaving projects in ruins.
The Gazprom Precedent: Over-invoicing and Under-performance
The Fuentes’ legacy of deception didn’t start in Guyana; it was perfected in Venezuela. Public court records from the Southern District of Texas reveal a scathing legal battle with the Russian energy giant Gazprom.
Gazprom alleged that Lindsayca was overpaid for services that were never approved, never provided, or performed far below industry standards. The claim? A staggering US$8.7 million in over-billed charges on allegations of “over-invoicing” and “underperforming” on strategic gas infrastructure.
The Financial Red Flags: Drowning in Debt
Before landing the US$759M contract in Guyana, Lindsayca’s own financials between 2016 and 2019 told a story of a company in terminal decline. Investigative findings show the entity was drowning in millions of dollars of debt, with auditors qualifying their opinions because they couldn’t even verify the company’s basic accounting records.
Despite these glaring red flags, the GTE Task Force apparently skipped the basic “Google search” that would have revealed Lindsayca was functionally bankrupt while bidding for our nation’s energy future.
The Dominican Disaster: Years of Delays in Manzanillo
If the government wanted to see Lindsayca’s future, they only needed to look at the Dominican Republic. The Manzanillo Gas-to-Power project has become a monument to the Fuentes brothers’ inability to deliver.
The initial Request for Proposals (RFP) was opened by the Dominican Ministry of Energy and Mines back in January 2021. Yet, despite being awarded the project years ago, the facility only reached commercial operations in March 2026—delays that mirrors the exact timeline slippage being witnessed at Wales, West Bank Demerara. Just as they did in Guyana, the consortium navigated a maze of concession approvals and definitive contracts that stretched for years while the country waited for power.
Walking the IRS Tightrope: The Act 60 Shell Game As the Fuentes brothers shuffle money across borders, Hector Fuentes appears to be playing a high-stakes game with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Public records indicate that Hector Fuentes operates a network of entities in Puerto Rico, designed to exploit the island’s Act 60 tax incentives—which offer a staggering 4% corporate tax rate and 0% on capital gains.
However, there is a catch: to legally qualify for these “tax-haven” benefits, a person must be a bona fide resident of Puerto Rico, spending at least 183 days a year on the island. Yet, Hector Fuentes is widely reported to maintain his primary residence and business operations in Houston, Texas.
If Fuentes is reaping the rewards of Puerto Rican tax breaks while actually residing in the Lone Star State, he is walking a razor-thin line toward federal tax evasion. The IRS has recently launched a massive crackdown on high-net-worth individuals abusing these Puerto Rican loopholes. Is the Guyanese government comfortable hitching our national energy security to a man who could soon find himself in the crosshairs of a federal tax fraud investigation?
The Trojan Horse: Corrupt PDVSA Officials in Guyana
Perhaps the most egregious insult to the Guyanese people is the “revolving door” of corruption led by Lindsayca’s Project Director, Ruben Figuera.
Before he was overseeing the Wales project, Figuera was a high-ranking official in the Maduro regime, presiding over Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA’s joint ventures. Investigative records show Figuera was instrumental in awarding multimillion-dollar contracts to none other than Lindsayca.
The money trail from those deals led international authorities to freeze millions of dollars in Figuera’s bank accounts in Andorra on charges of bribery and money laundering. Today, that same man is the “Project Director” for Lindsayca in Guyana, presiding over the very project the U.S. State Department calls a “beacon for regional energy security.”
The British Bait-and-Switch
While the Fuentes used U.S. diplomatic muscle and their status as “Embassy darlings” to secure the bid, they executed a calculated bait-and-switch at the moment of signing. The “American” company didn’t sign the contract. Instead, they used a UK-registered shell company, Lindsayca Development LLP, incorporated just weeks before the signing.
This move wasn’t accidental. It allowed them to invoke the 1989 UK-Guyana Bilateral Investment Treaty, creating a legal fortress that allowed them to sue the Guyanese government for US$102M in “liquidated damages” while evading local taxes.
The Cycle of Looting: From Venezuela to Guyana and Back
The Fuentes family has come full circle. After bleeding PDVSA dry and securing a billion-dollar foothold in Guyana through deception, they are now using Guyanese-funded momentum to land new deals back in Venezuela.
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How is his possible is our Sitting Government , Morons and if you ask me stupidity is glaring at us.We should have never never gotten involved with our neighbors and enemies be at the same Time unbelievable and shocking Now how BB to GET rid of them without paying the penalty, real stupidity and reckless on the part of this sitting government who doesn’t respect the nation , because this won’t have happened if there WAS TRANSPARENCY AND IT WAS PRESENTED IN PARLIAMENT FOR DISCUSSION UNBELIEVABLE.