Panama Papers scandal: Three names from Guyana with links to secret offshore accounts found in database

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) on Monday released a database containing information on almost 320,000 offshore entities that are part of the Panama Papers scandal and the offshore leaks investigations.

“The data covers nearly 40 years – from 1977 through 2015 – and links to people and companies in more than 200 countries and territories.”

A search of the database under the country of Guyana has so far produced three names, “Edris K. Dookie, Yucatan Coutinho Reis and Chetwynd R.F. Bowling.”

Dookie, according to the database, is a shareholder in Oyster Oil and Gas Limited – an active company located in the British Virgin Islands that was incorporated in 2010. The database shows that his local address in Guyana is Lot A16-17 Shamrock Gardens, Ogle, East Coast Demereara. Located at this local address is Mid Atlantic Oil & Gas Inc, a company of which Dookie is the co-founder.

Dookie is no stranger to Guyana since he was also the co-founder and President of ON energy and Executive Vice President of CGX Resources Inc, a Canadian oil company that was granted three exploration licenses by the government of Guyana to unearth oil.

Dookie was allegedly unceremoniously booted by the board of the company in light of the poor performance by CGX in 2013 to find hydrocarbon deposits on the shores of Guyana.

Yucatan Reis, is another named person in the Panama database that is linked to Guyana. He is a Brazilian, who the database says is a beneficiary of Equatorial Project Management and Engineering Enterprises Ltd. Further checks of the database showed that the company was incorporated in 2013 and became inactive in 2015, with the status being labeled “Bad debt account.” The address of the company is in Switzerland with offshore connections in the British Virgin Islands. The database also shows that Reis is linked to Guyana  via a local address, Lot 40 Bel Air, Georgetown, Guyana.

Reis is the co-owner of Muri Brazil Ventures Inc and also the owner of Excel Minerals, a gold and mining/money transfer/financing company located at 6^th and Light Streets, Albertown.

Muri Brazil Ventures Inc, in 2013, was granted by the then government of Guyana a permit for mineral surveying in the “ecologically fragile” New River Triangle. A controversy had erupted over the granting of this permit, since it was unearthed that the then Natural Resources Minister Robert Persaud, with the Permission for Geological and Geographical Survey (PGGS) granted the company the right to occupy a large section of Guyana’s land to conduct geological and geophysical surveys for rare earth elements, bauxite, limestone, nephelene, syenite, gold, diamonds and granite stones in South East Berbice for a period of 36 months.

The third person named in the database linked to Guyana is Chetwynd R.F. Bowling. Bowling’s local address is Lot 20 Mainand St. John, New Amsterdam, Berbice, Guyana. The database shows that Bowling is a shareholder and Director of Alinga Consulting Group LTD, an active company that was incorporated in 2008.