A former minister in the Government of Barbados has been found guilty of two counts of money laundering and one of conspiracy to commit money laundering.In the US District Court for Eastern District of New York, Donville Inniss was alleged to have received bribes from a Barbadian insurance company, whose controlling shareholder is Bermudian insurer BF&M Ltd.A federal jury found Inniss guilty of transferring $36,000 from Barbados, where he was a member of the country’s Parliament, to the US. US prosecutors claimed that Inniss, a former industry minister and parliamentarian in the Caribbean country, accepted $36,000 in bribes from Insurance Corporation of Barbados Ltd in exchange for his help in landing Barbadian government contracts.The payments were made by “the Bermuda company” that was a majority shareholder of ICBL, to the bank account of a dental company in New York, and then transferred to a US bank account of Inniss.The prosecutors stated that employees of ICBL “did not disclose to the Bermuda company that the payments were for the benefit of a Barbadian government official and instead falsely claimed that the payments were for ‘[c]onsulting services’.”In a 2018 letter, the fraud division of the US Department of Justice said it had closed its investigation of ICBL after the company had voluntary given self-disclosure of matters in the investigation, taken action to enhance compliance, terminated executives and employees involved in the misconduct, and disgorged $93,940 profit obtained from the contracts that were investigated.Inniss is a US permanent resident who resided in Tampa, Florida, and Barbados. On January 16, a jury found him guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and two counts of money laundering, one in 2015 and one in 2016.Inniss will be sentenced next month.According to reports in The Wall Street Journal and Barbados Today, Anthony Ricco, a lawyer for Inniss, said his client would appeal the conviction.• It is The Royal Gazette’s policy not to allow comments on stories regarding criminal court cases.