by Brian Major
Last updated: 2:30 PM ET, Thu August 8, 2024
Former British Virgin Islands (BVI) premier and tourism minister
Andrew Fahie received an 11-year prison sentence in a Florida federal court this
past week following his February conviction for cocaine trafficking and money laundering.
In Miami for the Seatrade Cruise Global conference, Fahie was
arrested in April 2022 with Oleanvine Pickering Maynard, managing director of
the BVI Ports Authority, in Miami after the pair agreed to facilitate the transportation
of cocaine from Colombia through BVI ports to Miami.
Fahie was found guilty of working with undercover U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents posing as drug dealers in a
conspiracy to use territorial waters to traffic a multi-kilogram cocaine
shipment.
DOJ officials said Fahie and Maynard agreed to facilitate
the transportation of 3,000 kilograms of cocaine as a trial, with subsequent deliveries
planned once or twice monthly for four months. Fahie was expected to receive a
share of the profits from the sale of the cocaine, officials said.
Fahie attempted to “tip the British Virgin Islands from a
renowned tourist destination to a haven for narcotrafficking,” said U.S.
District Court Judge Kathleen Williams, quoted in BVI Beacon report. Fahie’s
11-year sentence was higher than the 10-year minimum term his lawyers had
sought but was less than the 19 years prosecutors had requested.
During the Miami hearing Williams acknowledged Fahie had assisted
people in his community in attaining higher education and entering the medical
and legal professions. His attorneys say the ex-premier will appeal his
sentence.
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