Former Insurance Corporation of Barbados Limited (ICBL) chief executive officer Ingrid Innes has pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to conspiracy to commit money laundering in connection with a bribery scheme involving former Barbados government minister Donville Inniss.
Innes, 71, pleaded guilty to one count in the Eastern District of New York and was sentenced to time served, fined US$7,000, and ordered to pay a US$100 court assessment. The judge took her medical condition into consideration when determining the sentence.
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The case stems from approximately US$36,000 in payments made in 2015 and 2016 to Inniss, who was then Barbados’ Minister of Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development. U.S. prosecutors said the payments were intended to help ICBL secure government insurance contracts.
The payments were disguised through two fraudulent invoices and ultimately channeled to Crystal Dental Lab, a U.S.-based dental company associated with Inniss. The invoices amounted to approximately US$16,537 and US$20,000.
Innes had previously been charged alongside former ICBL senior vice-president Alex Tasker. The U.S. Justice Department alleged that the two executives participated in a scheme to launder payments to Inniss in exchange for his assistance in securing government contracts for ICBL.
Inniss was separately convicted by a U.S. federal jury in January 2020 of two counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He was sentenced in 2021 to two years in prison and ordered to forfeit US$36,536.73.
According to reports from Barbados, Innes said she had been told the payments she approved were for consulting services. She has since acknowledged that authorising the payments was a lapse in judgment and accepted responsibility for her actions.
The case, which began with a U.S. investigation into international corruption, has highlighted the use of the American financial system to conceal payments connected to foreign government officials. ICBL voluntarily disclosed the payments to U.S. authorities and surrendered more than US$93,000 in profits that U.S. authorities determined were connected to the scheme.
