Couple in “Ponzi scheme” pays over $30M bail

Cuban national Yuri Garcia-Dominguez and his Guyanese wife, Ateeka Ishmael have posted millions in bail in relation to 70-plus charges that accuse them of swindling Guyanese of more than $200 million in a major Ponzi scheme.
Confirming this Thursday was one of the couple’s lawyers, Dexter Todd.

Todd explained that his clients were granted bail at the level of the Magistrates’ Courts. They had earlier approached the High Court for bail in relation to some of the charges they were remanded to prison on by a Magistrate; those bail applications were refused.
However, according to Todd, the Magistrate in question has since granted bail. Meanwhile, on Thursday, they were slapped with 15 new charges which stated that they obtained over $10 million from several persons under false pretence.
This paved the way for the couple to pay the monies via a manager’s cheque, and be released on their pre-trial liberty. As conditions of bail, Garcia-Dominquez and his wife were ordered to lodge their passports and report to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Headquarters, Eve Leary, Georgetown.
They have since filed judicial review proceedings at the Demerara High Court in which they have named acting Police Commissioner Nigel Hoppie; Attorney General Anil Nandlall and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shalimar Ali-Hack, as respondents.
In the High Court proceedings, they are seeking several orders directed to the respondents.
Among other things, they are asking that all prosecutions and investigations against them be discontinued.
Their lawyers contend the actions taken so far by the Top Cop, DPP and the Attorney General are unlawful, unreasonable, in excess of jurisdiction, irrational, unfair, arbitrary, capricious, ultra vires, unconstitutional, without proper legal grounds, and therefore constitute an abuse of public law power, null, void, and of no legal effect.
Garcia-Dominquez had claimed that monies collected from Guyanese investors are stored in offshore accounts in several foreign jurisdictions, including Belize, the United States, and Germany. However, despite Government allowing the couple to open an account at Demerara Bank to refund investors, they have failed to do so.
In fact, Attorney General Anil Nandlall had told the media that “not a cent” had been deposited into the account.
Police had said that while Garcia-Dominguez was in prison, he was given access to a computer and Internet to conduct the transactions necessary to transfer monies into the account at Demerara Bank.
According to Police, after contacting his lawyer, Dexter Todd, Garcia-Dominguez informed ranks that he was instructed not to conduct any transactions unless the Police promise to withdraw the current charges he and his wife were facing. At this point, Police said that Garcia-Dominguez was informed that such a decision lay with the Office of the DPP.