Shocking new details have emerged from the recent court documents filed on June 28th, 2024 in the case involving former Premier of the Virgin Islands Andrew A. Fahie. The court documents received by our newsroom follow Fahie’s recent conviction on drug and money laundering charges earlier this year.
Fahie was found guilty on all charges including conspiring to import cocaine, money laundering and racketeering.
In the new court documents, prosecutors alleged that Fahie’s scheme to use his position as Premier to traffic cocaine to the United States involved a number of significant bribes involving top officials such as former Controller of BVI Customs Mr. Wade Smith, convicted former BVI Ports Authority Director Ms. Oleanvine Maynard along with Ms. Roxane Sylvester former Deputy Chair of the BVI Port Authority Board.
Extracts from the court documents showed Fahie allegedly needed to bribe a number of BVI Customs officials to guarantee that vessels carrying cocaine would dock in Tortola, Virgin Islands without any interferences. Prosecutors stated that as a result of Fahie’s position as Premier, gave him the power to strongly sway the Customs officials.
It is alleged that Sylvester’s involvement was predominantly arranged by Fahie, as Sylvester would not have been in Miami. Fahie allegedly labelled Sylvester as “110% his” and expressed to the undercover informant that she could be trusted. Court documents further revealed that Sylvester was also allegedly present at a meeting where the details of how the cash would be transported were discussed.
Equally, Fahie allegedly reassured the undercover agent of Smith’s cooperation, stating, “He can play but remember he has a lot of people with him.” In the March 7 meeting, Fahie allegedly assured the Confidential Source that he would “handle Wade Smith.” Prosecutors then revealed that Fahie and Smith exchanged missed calls four times before speaking for roughly 10 minutes around 8:30 a.m. the following morning March 8th.
These profound admissions became public through the prosecution’s objections to Fahie’s Presentence Investigation report, which brought to light his alleged leadership role in the drug scheme.
Fahie has been labelled as a major leader in the scheme, involving the alleged shipment of 3,000 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to the BVI, then to Puerto Rico, Miami, and New York City. Each shipment of cocaine was expected to allegedly produce $78 million in revenue and approximately $7 million of that would be paid directly to Fahie. Eight shipments were expected to be made over four months and Fahie was expected to be paid approximately $56 million and then 24,000 kilograms of cocaine would have been shipped to the United States.
Fahie allegedly requested $500,000 from the Confidential Source to pay the necessary bribes and agreed to collect this payment in Miami on April 27, 2022 (a day before he was arrested). Phone messages allegedly show that Fahie directed Maynard and Sylvester to accompany his money from Miami to Tortola so that “no one sees me around the business.”