Cuban national, Yuri Garcia Dominguez, who has been accused of running a Ponzi/pyramid scheme, now says he intends to refund some $100 million to over 3,000 investors, whose investments he was ‘managing’ in a forex trading account.
Speaking on his behalf on Wednesday, attorney-at-law, Dexter Todd said, before any refunds are made, Dominguez must be given time and space to recoup the losses suffered on the trading account in recent weeks while he was arrested, detained and refused bail by the police.
Todd, during an interview with the News Room, recalled the arrest of Dominguez back in August 2020 and his detention for several weeks while he was denied bail. He said during the period of incarceration, Dominguez, who is the main trader, left his account unattended with large sums of investment capital.
Todd said when his client regained access to the account, which had become the subject of a major investigation involving the police and the Attorney General Chambers, it had accumulated huge losses and was running in the negative.
He pegged the losses to be over USD$1.2M. The monies were traded through an investment company, Accelerated Capital Firm Inc. – of which Dominguez and his wife, Ateeka Ishmael are directors.
“Any trader who understands how you trade in forex would understand the risk is that trader must know when to close the trading account and when inflation or a drop in the trading market will occur.
“What we are seeing is that emotions are running wild and no one is sitting to understand the magnitude of trade and what we are dealing with,” Todd told the News Room.
Todd said Dominguez is currently tending to the account, with the intention of recouping the losses, and has every intention to repay all investors who have not received a return on their investment. This, Todd said, can be done safely by mid next year.
The attorney contended that many of the investors feel as though they need to go to the police and make a report before they get back their monies, but he is advising them that this is false.
“Mr. Dominguez has been trying to bring down the penalties and losses in the account…more charges wouldn’t help the situation. The agencies need to come together and work with him for a smooth resolution.
“When you charge him and put him before the court and you have him on remand, what happens is that you allow him to be removed from the trade and put him in a place where he jeopardises the investments of other people,” the lawyer argued.
Todd sought to assure that all the monies were invested for the purposes intended and remain with the broker. He explained that the risk of closing those trades means losing 68.5 per cent of the whole capital invested, which in turn also means that not everybody will be paid.
Todd said this is not what his client intends to do and will continue to work on returning the trading account to profitability with the ultimate goal of ensuring 100 per cent of investors get back what was promised in the agreement.
According to the Guyana Police Force, Dominguez and his wife solicited millions of dollars from hundreds of unsuspecting Guyanese, who were enticed by extraordinary returns of approximately 40 per cent. Investors were also encouraged to enlist additional investors on a 10 per cent commission basis.
The company was charged for operating without a license from the Guyana Securities Council and running a pyramid scheme and a Ponzi scheme; the couple is currently before the courts with over 80 charges of fraud.
Todd said the charges send a bad signal to the international community and also shows the incompetence of the Guyana Police Force to properly investigate these matters.
He maintained that everything his client did was above board and “absolutely not illegal.”
In other words budday has to run a ponzi scheme to pay for his ponzi scheme.
Dear Mr. Todd……he was not trading in “forex” to get those gains…..please get that thru your head. Forex is incredibly thin margins and you need hundreds of millions of dollars……