Former British Virgin Islands Premier Andrew Fahie plans to appeal his February conviction on cocaine smuggling and money laundering charges, according to recently filed court papers, and said the United States government played a much more active role than he did.
While not admitting guilt, Fahie argued Wednesday that he had a lesser part in the plot to turn Tortola into a major cocaine through point for South American narcotics bound for Puerto Rico, Miami, and New York than his co-conspirators. U.S. government agents who set up the sting operation were the real instigators and planners, Fahie’s attorneys said.
It was the undercover agents that hatched the bogus smuggling plan and brought it to then-BVI Ports Authority Executive Director Oleanvine Pickering Maynard and her son Kadeem Maynard. It was the federal agents and the Maynards who concocted an alleged bribery scheme and worked out logistics to park cocaine-laden ships in Tortola for a few days to gain legitimacy. And it was the federal agents — known as confidential sources or CS in court records — and the Maynards who arranged a side deal to move more cocaine directly into Tortola for sale in their personal drug-dealing network, Fahie’s attorney argued.
By Fahie’s telling, he went along with the plot only as a way to gather information that he could give to authorities. Some 8,000 minutes of secretly recorded audio tape detail what prosecutors called Fahie’s enthusiastic participation.
Fahie’s attorneys concede it was not a winning defense in court.
“Mr. Fahie’s position continues to be that those, and other, conversations were designed to obtain information about the CS’s scheme so that he could report it. That position was not accepted by the jury,” Fahie’s attorneys wrote.
Fahie was convicted Feb. 8 and is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 5. The Maynards pleaded guilty in 2023.
In their sentencing recommendations, prosecutors were also overstating Fahie’s involvement in recruiting and directing other people associated with the plot but not charged in Miami, Fahie’s attorneys argued. The Maynards controlled people at the ports, not Fahie, his attorneys said. And although Fahie called BVI Customs Commissioner Wade Smith directly after discussing the smuggling plot, there was no solid evidence presented at trial that Smith was agreeable to bribes, the attorneys said. Fahie may have asked then-Deputy Ports Authority Chairperson Roxane Sylvester to come to Miami, they said, but she was unaware of the providence of the money she was allegedly asked to ferry back to Tortola — some $500,000.
“What is clear, however, is that Ms. Sylvester had no knowledge of the charged conspiracies. The government’s star witness, Ms. Maynard, so testified during the government’s case in chief. Ms. Maynard’s testimony on that score is buttressed by the discussions regarding Ms. Maynard throughout the recorded conversations. Rather than establishing control it is evident that Mr. Fahie was attempting to continue to shield Ms. Sylvester from the details of the CS’s plan and thus excused her, and to maintain appearances, Ms. Maynard as well,” Fahie’s attorneys wrote to the Southern Florida District Court deciding the correct range of penalties Fahie should face.
“The Government suggests that Mr. Fahie ‘recruited accomplices’ in the person of Mr. Smith and Ms. Sylvester. Government Objection at 5. As noted above there is affirmative evidence from Ms. Maynard that Ms. Sylvester had no knowledge of the charged crimes. As discussed above there is no evidence that Mr. Smith had any knowledge of the charged crimes other than Mr. Maynard’s uncorroborated comment on the recording from,” they wrote. “… it is the CS, not Mr. Fahie, who is issuing the instructions, directions, and orders.”
Prosecutors had successfully argued that Fahie could not claim he’d been entrapped by the undercover agents because, they said, he’d been given several opportunities to decline the offer to arrange drug smuggling but gleefully went along with the plot instead.
Prosecutors said Fahie and the Maynards leapt at the chance to work with people they believed to be representative of the Sinaloa drug cartel, also known as the Blood Alliance, to import 6,000 kilograms of cocaine a month. The drugs would come in twice-monthly shipments of 3,000 kilograms — 6,614 pounds. Most of the narcotics would be shipped to Puerto Rico after a few days, then on to Miami and eventually New York, according to court records.
Each shipment of cocaine would generate $78 million in revenue, and roughly $7 million of that would be paid to Fahie, prosecutors said. In the eight shipments that would be made over four months, Fahie expected to be paid roughly $56 million for 24,000 kilograms of cocaine shipped to the United States.
On top of the $56 million, Fahie asked for $500,000 to spread around as bribes. One of his first calls was to Wade Smith at Customs, prosecutors said. The content of the phone call was not revealed but BVI officials put Wade on leave in August 2022 for unspecified reasons. In February 2023, police searched Wade’s home and in December 2023, local media reported he had been arrested. BVI police declined to confirm his arrest, saying only “a Senior government official” was arrested for breach of public trust in relation to an investigation within Customs.
Fahie and the two maynards were arrested April 28, 2022, and later convicted — the Maynards on conspiracy to import more than five kilograms of cocaine and Fahie on four counts of conspiracy to import cocaine and commit money laundering charges, attempted money laundering, and racketeering.
A day after the arrests, the British government released its report on potential for corruption within the BVI government. The Commission of Inquiry said the potential was vast and advised that London take direct control, dissolving the locally-elected officials. Instead, a deal was struck with the new Premier to make reforms.
Court filings named two other Fahie associates involved in the plot. On the secretly recorded tapes, Fahie had said a smuggler known only as Tattoo was like a son to him. Fahie also said he owed money to a Senegalese man who had helped him in the past with illicit acts, prosecutors said. Fahie called a Senegalese man named Baye Cisse to discuss the plot, prosecutors said. Fahie and Cisse exchanged voice messages, prosecutors said, with Cisse approving the cocaine plot.
Fahie’s attorneys objected to this characterization as well.
“Instead, what the evidence did clearly show is that Mr. Cisse was consulted by Mr. Fahie to check on whether certain individuals were, in essence, political enemies, including the CS, Ms. Maynard, Ms. Sylvester and those individuals working on the Commission of Inquiry,” the attorneys wrote. “There is an absence of evidence upon which someone could conclude that Mr. Cisse knew about the charged conspiracy, much less knowingly and intentionally joined in it.
