ACCELERATED Capital Firm Inc (ACFI) Financial Adviser, Yuri Garcia Dominguez and Director, Ateeka Ishmael, were, on Thursday, August 27, 2020, taken before the court to answer 19 fraud-related charges
Dominguez and Ishmael of Track ‘A’ Coldingen, East Coast Demerara appeared before Magistrate Marissa Mittelholzer, at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court.
It is alleged that, between May and July 2020, the Cuban national and his wife, with intent to commit fraud, obtained a total sum of $24.7M from the 13 victims by false pretence.
The couple, was not required to plead to the charges and each was granted $3.9 million bail. The case was adjourned until September 18, 2020.
The couple also made a virtual appearance before Magistrate Alisha George at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court via Zoom.
A total of six similar charges were read against the duo which alleged that they obtained an excess of over $1M unlawfully,
For those charges the couple was remanded to prison until September 21, 2020.
The Couple was represented by attorneys-at-law Glen Hanoman and Dexter Todd.
Speaking with the media outside of court, Todd explained that the accusations laid against his client are private in nature which calls for proceedings in a civil court and not a criminal court.

“What the State has done is to impose itself as a third party to a private contract and it is forcibly allowing the course of a criminal nature to take shape, which ought not to be” Todd stressed.
The attorneys have also indicated that they will be moving to the High Court to seek bail for their clients.
Outside of the court, supporters and clients of the Accelerated Capital Firm Inc staged a protest against Dominguez and Ishmael being charged and also for them to be granted a licence to operate in Guyana.
Thus far a total of 57 persons have made reports at the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), with claims amounting to over $31.5 million in investments in the company.
The duo was first held by police one week ago following an investigation into the company allegedly running a “Ponzi Scheme”.
A Ponzi Scheme is a form of fraud in which investors are made to believe in the success of a non-existent enterprise, and encouraged to invest because of the payment of quick returns. However, the first investors are only being paid from money invested by successive investors.
However, the company vehemently denies the allegations and, in statements issued, affirmed that “the funds necessary to refund our clients are ready to be disbursed”.
News of the charges came, even as Attorney General, Anil Nandalall, said that the company is yet to respond to the offer the government made last Tuesday, to facilitate the re-opening of a bank account for the company, so that it can remit monies to its clients.

Nandalall said he is not holding on to hope that the company will ever take up the offer since investigation continues to reveal that overseas companies being named by the couple as where their money is stored, continues to lead to dead ends.
“No, they have not responded and I suspect that they cannot respond. It is clear that the gentleman only wants to get out of custody. All the promises that he has been making he has not been able to deliver them, none of them,” Nandalall said.
He added: “Of the places he has identified, as where the monies are, the monies are not there. The Financial Investigation Unit (FIU) just received a correspondence from Belize to say that the name of the company – “FK Choice – where he said he has the money in Belize, it is not registered in Belize; they have no evidence of it.”
Nandalall said that investigations by the police have also revealed a similar situation for a company that the couple said they have ties to in the USA.

“The FIU has its own processes and is checking. They have access to information and the companies where he is saying they have these monies they don’t have them. There’s a company he said in Nevada, he has no connection to the company, it’s an escrow account owned by some other people in the United States, some trust company,” Nandalall related.

However, attorney for the company, Dexter Todd, said that his client does intend to utilise the AG’s offer to open a bank account, but is waiting to see how the situation develops.
“That is an offer, we will accept that offer and we are presently putting systems in place so that that can be facilitated, that is what we are doing at this point in time,” Todd said,

The police have listed Dominguez, a naturalised Cuban national, and his wife as grave flight risks, given that they have no assets in the country. The pair is said to have been operating their investment company in Guyana for as far back as 2017; however, they have never been licensed to do so by the Guyana Securities Council (GSC) as is required.
According to reports, approximately 17,000 Guyanese are said to have collectively invested approximately US$20 million in the company. The company came to the limelight earlier this month, when several persons are said to have been making claims of not receiving their monies from the company.

ACFI has been attributing its failure to remit payments to clients as being due to its lack of a bank account, as several local commercial banks have closed accounts for Dominquez and Ishmael and their business over the past few months.
The company, in its latest press statement recently, pleaded with the authorities to release Dominguez and Ishmael so that payments to client could resume, and for investigators to allow Dominguez to explain “how the company is structured”.

The company said that the funds are “successfully secured in three physical ‘Bitcoin’ wallets, inaccessible to outside interference and protected”, and is asking that the authorities “facilitate the opening of a bank account on behalf of ACFI in order to be able to transfer the funds from our Bitcoin Wallets into the bank which will be used to repay ALL investors in Guyana”.

Nandlall said that the government’s main concern is that Guyanese who handed over their monies to the company get back their cash; and as such the government is willing to facilitate the bank account’s re-opening.