Donville Inniss, a former member of the Parliament of Barbados, was charged on Tuesday with conspiracy to launder money and money laundering in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
These charges are a result of Inniss’s alleged acceptance of bribes from a Barbadian insurance company in 2015 and 2016. Inniss allegedly received the bribes when he was a public official.
Inniss was arrested last Friday and was arraigned Tuesday before a United States magistrate in the Middle District of Florida at the federal courthouse in Tampa, Florida. Shortly thereafter, Inniss was released on $50,000 bond.
Indictment Details
According to the indictment, between August 2015 and April 2016, Inniss engaged in a scheme to accept approximately $36,000 in bribes from high-level executives of an insurance company headquartered in Barbados. After receiving the bribes, Inniss allegedly laundered the money in the United States.
In exchange for the bribes, Inniss leveraged his position as the Minister of Industry to enable the Barbados insurance company to obtain two key government contracts. Inniss obscured the bribes by organizing to receive them through a dental company and a bank located in Long Island, New York.
