Dear Editor,
Last Monday in NY, a former Wall Street trader was sentenced to over five years in prison after admitting to defrauding investors of $19 million in a Ponzi scheme. Paul Rinfret, 71, of Manhasset, New York, was sentenced Monday in Manhattan’s federal court. The sentencing followed his October guilty plea to wire and securities fraud. US District Judge Gregory Woods in Manhattan said Rinfret should spend five years and three months behind bars. Prosecutors said he carried out the fraud from at least 2016 through 2019, investing only a small portion of the money he raised from six victims. When he did invest, he lost money but falsified monthly account statements to make it seem as though his investors were enjoying excellent results, prosecutors said. They said he used money from investors on a nearly $50,000 Hamptons vacation rental and spent over $40,000 on jewellery and tens of thousands of dollars on the venue where his son held an engagement party. More than $20 million in forfeiture was ordered, along with over $12 million in restitution. In a letter to the judge, Rinfret said: “I do not offer excuses. I made terrible mistakes for which I have and will continue to pay. All responsibility is mine. I hate myself for the recklessness I showed.” Meanwhile, back in Guyana, Garcia-Dominguez, a Cuban national who was granted Guyanese citizenship in June, his Guyanese wife, Ateeka Ishmael, are both accused of running a Ponzi operation under a company named “Accelerated Capital Firm Investment.” They are facing some 80 fraud charges in three courts which include swindling billions of dollars from the pockets of some 17,000 Guyanese under false pretence. After spending a month in prison, they were both released and are on bail. There were some 70-plus complainants who registered apprehensions over gross operational irregularities and this led to a massive police investigation and the arrest of the two accused. It is understood that reparation will commence later this month and full restitution is expected, starting with about 100 participants. How long this process will take to complete and will everyone be compensated are some unanswered questions currently engaging the attention of the worried and concerned parties. How did this scheme go unnoticed for such a long time and undetected by the relevant authorities, or, was a blind eye deliberately turned in this issue? How gullible, naïve or financially-frustrated did Guyanese become under the vices of the past corrupted APNU/AFC Government? Here again is another reason why Guyanese cannot trust that party because they failed in securing the best interest of the nation and allowed their hard-earned dollars to be squandered and go wasted! A prudent and proactive Government has to be conscious of all irregularities that can undermine the economy, especially the citizens’ investments. When a Government is involved in underhand dealings with recalcitrant investors, then, it is the people who always suffer the most.
Guyana’s history has shown how a starved nation fighting for freedom and equality can fall to the wayside from those who are selfish, conceited, power-drunk and manipulative. More so, to the extent that the perpetrators will trample upon dignity, damage what was tirelessly built, destroy what was stubbornly fought for and sacrifice their souls for the sake of imperialism. The people’s prosperity was poisoned by poverty; a nefarious nature was left napping naked; coexistence was convoluted with corruption; thus, impregnated greed and animosity to interject the peace and progress that was resolutely created from a hard-fought battle that was a fusion of ethnic indifferences. Many moons ago, that infamous foundation crept into existence with a leader that was composed, cruel and callous. His cool hands and calculated brain complicated a contorted condition that premised a legacy of lies, frauds and deceits. This inheritance was gladly scooped up by followers with insatiable appetites for dramatic replication and intense confusion. The tool of divide and conquer was always conveniently associated under the guise of dictatorship, building up a fortress of resistance from the suppressed and aggravation from the used and abused. The commonality of hardship was ignored to save embarrassment, at the said time, the unrealistic cry for equality was absurdly echoed.
With the dissension of lawless behaviour, the promotion of hooliganism, the precedence of lawbreaking and bypassing the Constitution, they brazenly displayed the presumptuous disregard for rules and regulations and the implication of disrespect for law and order in society. Discrimination allotted the order of the day and control was wielded by the might of an assumed supremacy. The country experienced a moral convolution and harboured a culture that was tarnished at the leisure and pleasure of the privileged few. The characteristics that shape a man also shape a nation and so it is crucially essential that the voting electorate pay keen and rapid attention to a leader’s components and composure. Guyana decayed for thirty-three suffocating years under extreme hardship from falsity and dishonesty, yet Guyanese will not learn the bitter lessons. There are many who will still allow themselves to be led blindfolded, to walk the plank and still hold on to a dream of imagination that they are being led out from the land of wilderness unto the promised land for the “good life,” where “the small man is the real man.” If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, but, unfortunately, the reality is that man, by his own hands, is the creator of his destiny! Our words, deeds and actions do live after us.
Respectfully,
Jai Lall
