Guyanese-born Canadian national Ingrid Rosemary Innes, a former chief executive of the Insurance Corporation of Barbados Limited (ICBL), has been sentenced to time served and fined US$7,000 after admitting her role in a money-laundering conspiracy involving former Barbadian government minister Donville Inniss.
Innes appeared on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, before United States (US) District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto in the Eastern District of New York, where she pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. She was also ordered to pay a US$100 court assessment and barred from entering the United States.
The 71-year-old, who was born and raised in Guyana before moving to Canada, expressed remorse before the court. Her lawyers also pointed to her ongoing treatment for pancreatic cancer, a condition that the judge considered in determining the sentence.
Innes was charged in connection with a scheme in which approximately US$36,000 was paid to Inniss between 2015 and 2016 in exchange for his assistance in securing government insurance contracts for ICBL.
US prosecutors said the payments were routed through a New York dental company to conceal their true purpose. According to court documents, approximately US$16,536.73 was transferred in August 2015 from a Bermuda-based company account to a bank account in Elmont, New York, held in the name of a dental company. A further US$20,000 was transferred in April 2016.
The money was subsequently channelled to an account associated with Inniss.
The US Department of Justice said Innes and ICBL senior vice-president Alex Tasker participated in the scheme by disguising the payments as consulting fees. The payments were allegedly made in return for Inniss using his position as Minister of Industry and a member of Parliament to assist ICBL in obtaining government contracts.
The case centred on two insurance contracts involving the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation (BIDC), a government agency. Court records indicate that Inniss exercised influence over the contracts, while the payments to him were concealed through the US financial system.
Innes resigned from ICBL in 2017 and subsequently relocated to Canada. She had been fighting extradition to the United States for several years. Barbados Today reported that she ultimately decided to plead guilty after her health circumstances made continued litigation and the prospect of imprisonment increasingly difficult.
The sentencing brings to an end one of the major outstanding elements of the corruption case that began with the prosecution of Inniss.
Inniss was convicted by a US federal jury in January 2020 on conspiracy and money-laundering charges. He was sentenced in April 2021 to two years in federal prison, followed by supervised release, and ordered to forfeit more than US$36,000. His conviction was subsequently upheld on appeal.
ICBL itself was not prosecuted. The company voluntarily disclosed the payments to US authorities and, under the Department of Justice’s corporate enforcement policy, agreed to disgorge US$93,940.19 in profits linked to the scheme.
The third defendant, former ICBL senior vice-president Alex Tasker, remains outside US custody. Tasker has been fighting extradition from Barbados. The Caribbean Court of Justice previously reopened his case after finding that he had initially challenged his extradition under the wrong legal provision.
The case has therefore stretched across more than eight years, linking Barbados, Guyana, Canada, Bermuda and the United States in a corruption investigation involving government contracts and the movement of illicit payments through the international financial system.
