NewzNEW YORK, United States (CMC) – Former Insurance Corporation of Barbados Limited (ICBL) chief executive officer Ingrid Innes has been fined US$7,000 and sentenced to time served after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The 70-year-old, who has stage three pancreatic cancer, avoided further imprisonment after District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto took her medical condition into account. Innes was charged in connection with a bribery scheme involving former government minister Donville Inniss.
Inniss was convicted in the United States in 2020 and served two years in federal prison. The payments were alleged to be bribes intended to help the Insurance Corporation of Barbados Limited secure more business. According to Barbados Today, on January 14, 2020, the payments were based on two fraudulent invoices prepared by the company’s chief financial officer, Kamante Millar, who later entered into a plea agreement and testified for the prosecution against Innes, other ICBL executives, and Inniss.
During the 2020 federal trial here, Millar testified that she generated two false internal invoices. The invoices – one for US$16,536.73 in 2015 and another for US$20, 000 in 2016 – were used to disguise payments that were ultimately channelled to Inniss’ US-based dental company, Crystal Dental Lab. According to Innes, a Canadian national, when she was asked to approve the payments to Inniss, she was told they were for consulting fees.
She was also told that in Barbados it was not necessarily illegal or unusual for Members of Parliament to own businesses, including consulting companies, or to accept campaign contributions from government suppliers.
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