–with 14 more victims and counting coming forward to levy fraud-related charges

By Clestine Juan

ACCELERATED Capital Firm Inc (ACFI)’s Yuri Garcia Dominguez and Ateeka Ishmael were on Monday, September 7, 2020, hauled before the courts again to answer 14 more fraud-related charges.

This time around, the pair appeared before Magistrate Fabayo Azore at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court, where they were charged jointly but not required to plead to allegations that between May and July, 2020, with intent to commit a felony, they conspired, with persons known and unknown, to obtain a total of over $9M from 14 victims of their alleged ‘scam’ under false pretence.

The Cuban national and his Guyanese wife, who are represented by Attorneys-at-Law Glen Hanoman and Dexter Todd, were released on $800,000 bail each, and the case adjourned until November 7, 2020.

On September 2, the pair had appeared before City Magistrate Dylon Bess, where they were charged jointly but not required to plead to allegations that between May and July 2020, with intent to commit a felony, they conspired with persons known and unknown to obtain a total of over $75M from 11 victims of their alleged ‘scam’ under false pretence. On that occasion, they were released on $3.3M bail each.

Just the day before, Tuesday, September 1, 2020, the couple had appeared before Magistrate Fabayo Azore at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court, where they were charged jointly, but not required to plead, to the allegation that between May and July, 2020, with intent to commit a felony, they conspired with persons known and unknown to obtain a total of over $30M from 12 persons, again under false pretence.
They were released on $3.6M bail each, and that particular matter has been adjourned until September 21.

When they were arraigned before Magistrate Leron Daly at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court on Monday, August 31, 2020, it was to answer to 10 charges, the particulars of which state that between the months of May and July 2020, they, with intent to commit a felony, conspired with persons known and unknown to obtain a total sum of over $60M from 10 victims under false pretence. They were released on $1M bail each, and the case was adjourned until October 5, 2020.

FIRST COURT APPERANCE

The couple had first appeared on Thursday August 27, 2020 before Magistrate Marissa Mittelholzer at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court, where the charges against them were that between May and July 2020, they, with intent to commit fraud, obtained a total of $24.7M from 13 persons by false pretence.

At the time, the couple was not required to plead to the charges, and was granted $3.9 million bail each. That matter was adjourned until September 18, 2020.

The couple had also made a virtual appearance before Magistrate Alisha George at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court, where a total of six similar charges were read against them, alleging that they’d obtained in excess of $1M unlawfully.
For those charges, the couple was remanded to prison until September 21, 2020.

Thus far, a total of 57 persons have come forward and lodged complaints against them with the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), claiming to have invested millions of dollars in ACFI, and not seeing a blind cent in return, as they’d been promised.

The duo was first held by the police a little over a week ago following an investigation into widespread rumours that they were 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, a charge that both Dominguez and Ishmael have since vehemently denied, via a statement, saying: “The funds necessary to refund our clients are ready to be disbursed.”
The police here have listed Dominguez, a naturalised Guyanese of Cuban origin, and his wife, who’s Guyanese by birth, as grave flight risks, given that they have no assets in the country.

The pair is said to have been operating their investment company, ACFI, here in Guyana from as far back as 2017, but have never been licensed to do so by the Guyana Securities Council (GSC) as is required.

According to reports, some 17,000 Guyanese are said to have collectively invested approximately US$20 million in the company, which first came to the limelight earlier this month, when several persons came forward, claiming to have not received any returns as promised.
ACFI has been attributing its failure to remit payments to clients to its lack of a bank account, as several local commercial banks have closed whatever accounts they’d held with them.