Photo: BVI Government / Courtesy
MIAMI – The Prime Minister of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Andrew Alturo Fahie, and the director of the Port Authority of the same Caribbean archipelago, Oleanvine Pickering Maynard, appeared this Friday before a federal court in Miami, Florida, where they were charged with conspiracy to traffic cocaine and money laundering,
reported in a statement the Attorney General’s Office for the Southeastern District of Florida.
The Prosecutor’s Office also indicated that the same charges weigh on the son of the port director , Kadeem Stephan Maynard, who was arrested on the island of Saint Thomas.
The Prosecutor’s Office accuses the three of “agreeing to facilitate the safe passage through the ports of BVI (British Virgin Islands) of tons of Colombian cocaine destined for Miami.”
In exchange, details the public ministry, the defendants “would gain million that would be channeled through different companies and bank accounts to hide the origin of the money.”
According to the indictment, during March and April , Fahie, Maynard and their son Kadeem participated in a series of meetings with an alleged drug trafficker to negotiate the deal.
“Fahie and Maynard would get the required licenses and would protect cocaine-filled ships while in portof BVI”, reads the affidavit.
There was talk, adds the Prosecutor’s statement, of wearing 3,000 kilograms of cocaine through a British Virgin Islands port as evidence, followed by another equal amount, once or twice a month for four months.
Fahie and Maynard would thus obtain “a percentage of the sales of cocaine”, that is, “millions of dollars”, points out.
The indictment of 19 pages filed in a court in the Southern District of Florida says that since 16 October 2021 a confidential DEA source held several meetings with a group of self-proclaimed Lebanese Hezbollah operatives, who claimed ties between South Florida and the Middle East.
These meetings were held on the island of Tortola and, during the course Of these, help was offered so that the British Overseas Territory became a temporary storage point for cocaine coming from Colombia and with a final destination in the United States.
Fahie and Maynard, who according to the Miami Herald were in South Florida participating in Seatrade Cruise Global, the world’s leading cruise industry event, were detained yesterday at Miami-Opa-locka Executive Airport by undercover federal agents.
Agents from the United States Department of Justice Agency dedicated to the fight against smuggling and drug use, in addition to money laundering, posed as members of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, the newspaper detailed.
Both went to the airport this Thursday morning to get a cash advance of $700, dollars related to his smuggling deal, according to the statement from the Prosecutor’s Office.
The Governor of the British Virgin Islands, John Rankin, reported yesterday, for his part, what happened.
“It is my duty as Governor to report that this morning the Honorable Prime Minister Fahie was arrested in Miami on charges related to conspiracy to import controlled substance and money laundering,” Rankin said in a statement.
As this is the arrest of a British citizen, the US government has informed the UK of this arrest “as part of the normal process followed when a British citizen is arrested abroad”, added the Governor.
This Friday the interim Prime Minister of the British Virgin Islands, Natalio Wheatley, requested that Fahie, whom he replaces, receive due process after his arrest in Miami on charges of drug trafficking.
The DEA administrator, Anne Milgram, stated that the arrest of the prime minister and the port director and their son “should send a very clear message”: “Anyone involved in bringing dangerous drugs into the United States will be held accountable, regardless of their position.”
Fahie and Oleanvine Pickering Maynard have pre-trial detention hearings scheduled for next Wednesday, May 4 in federal court in Miami.
It may interest you:
– DEA arrested officials from the British Virgin Islands in Miami for drug trafficking
– What is “legal corruption”, the mechanism used by politicians and businessmen to hide millions of dollars a year in tax havens
– Huevo Treviño, leader of the Northeast Cartel, sent tons of “poison” to the United States United, accuse