By: Staff Writer
April 29, 2022
The Governor General of the British Virgin Islands in a statement said that the country’s Premier being locked up in the United States on drug trafficking and money laundering charges is “not linked” to the Commission of Inquiry Report that was completed in early April.
Sir Gary Hickinbottom, in a statement on BVI Premier Andrew Fahie’s arrest in Miami on Drug Charges earlier this week, said that while he and the United Kingdom’s government acknowledges Mr Fahie’s arrest that the normal process for all citizens arrested abroad and particularly in the United States will apply.
Sir Hickinbottom also said: “What I can confirm is that the arrest was a US operation led by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and is not linked to the Commission of Inquiry Report.”
Mr Fahie and the BVI’s port director, Oleanvine Maynard, along with a Kadeem Stephan Maynard aka “Blacka” were arrested on drug trafficking and money laundering charges on Thursday after they went to a Miami airport to check on a huge cash payment that was promised them by an undercover operative pretending to be a Mexican cartel member.
The Miami Herald reports, “The U.S. undercover probe actually began last fall with a series of mysterious meetings between a confidential government informant posing as the Mexican drug smuggler and a group claiming to be Lebanese Hezbollah operatives with connections to the Caribbean territory’s leaders, according to a criminal complaint and affidavit filed in the case.
“With their help, the U.S. informant eventually met up with BVI’s premier, Fahie, the port director, Maynard, and her son, Kadeem Maynard, to lure them into providing protection for purported Colombian cocaine shipments through the British Virgin Islands to Miami, U.S. authorities say.
“In return, the U.S. informant, who claimed to be working for the Sinaloa cartel, promised to pay the premier and port director $700,000 at first and millions later on as their cut of the planned cocaine shipments — all during recorded meetings in the British Virgin Islands and Miami in March and April, according to the documents filed in Miami federal court.”
On Thursday, BVI’s premier, Fahie, and its port director, Maynard and Blacka were arrested by DEA agents when the foreign officials went to Miami-Opa-locka Executive Airport to check out the purported $700,000 cash payment on an airplane that they believed was destined for the British Virgin Islands, according to the affidavit.
Court documents revealed to Caribbean Magazine Plus show that Maynard was paid a $200,000 advance on the $700,000 and was told that remaining payment for the drugs would have been hidden prior to their flight to Miami. When Maynard exited the plane on Thursday, she was arrested by DEA officers.