Cuban national Yuri Garcia-Dominguez and his Guyanese wife, Ateeka Ishmael, were today slapped with 10 additional charges alleging that they swindled millions of dollars from Guyanese in a major Ponzi Scheme.
The husband and wife duo appeared before via Skype before Magistrate Leron Daly at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.
It is alleged that between May and July 2020, with intent to commit a felony, they conspired with persons known and unknown to obtain a total sum of over $60M from the 10 persons under false pretence.
They pleaded not guilty to the charges and were ordered to post $1M bail each. Their lawyers are Glen Hanoman and Dexter Todd. They will make another court appearance on October 5, 2020.
Last week Thursday, the couple appeared at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court where they were arraigned on 13 charges, which alleged that they obtained the sum of $24.7 million from 13 persons by false pretence. They were granted a total of $3.9 million bail each and will report to court on September 18.
On that same day, the couple was also slapped with an additional six charges at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court. They appeared via Skype for that arraignment and were not required to plead to the allegations that they obtained over $1 million from the six victims under false pretence.
The duo was remanded to prison until September 21 on this set of charges.
A multi-stakeholder group has been established by the government to investigate the allegations of fraud and other criminal activities connected to the alleged illegal and pyramid scheme, operated by Accelerated Capital Firm Inc.
The matter came to fore after numerous complaints were made by persons who invested with the company.
