Newly released documents from the 2024 cocaine-conspiracy trial of Andrew Fahie show the former BVI premier was so comfortable with the proposed drug smuggling and money laundering plan that he brought his teenage daughter to what turned out to be his arrest.
Transcripts from the trial in Florida’s Southern District Court reveal other yet-unreported details of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s sting operation that snared not just the British Virgin Islands’ premier but also its Ports Authority director and her son.
The newly-released records outline the extraordinary size of the phony drug-running plan cooked up by DEA agents. If the scheme was real, it would have potentially streamed thousands of kilograms of cocaine in and out of the BVI’s harbors, with the Ports Authority director and her son setting aside 60 kilograms for themselves to sell locally.
Fahie, 55, was convicted Feb. 8, 2024, on all charges: conspiracy to import more than five kilograms of cocaine, conspiracy to engage in money laundering, attempted money laundering, and foreign travel in aid of racketeering. He was sentenced to 135 months imprisonment, followed by five years supervised release.
Oleanvine Pickering-Maynard, 63, and son Kadeem Stephen Maynard, 34, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import a controlled substance. Their sentences — nine years and four months for mother, and 57 months for son — were less severe because the court found they played a less integral role in the plot. Fahie’s attorneys disputed that the Maynards played a minor part, arguing that the duo met with undercover agents posing as Sinaloa Cartel representatives first, hatched the plan, and then brought it to Fahie.
Fahie’s attorney told the court they intended to appeal his being labeled as a major part of the crimes, which warranted the harsher sentence. Fahie did not make a statement in court after his conviction because of the appeal, he told the judge.
The summaries below come from voluminous transcripts requested by Fahie’s attorneys in his appeal. They feature quotes from, among others, undercover law enforcement agents’ testimony, where they describe events leading up to the April 2022 arrests. In some cases, the agents add context to secretly recorded audio played for the jury.
The agents were pretending to be from the Sinaloa Cartel, a murderous crime syndicate the United States government regards as a terrorism network.
Fahie brought men he believed to be terrorist drug smugglers to his teenage daughter’s home.
Fahie did not share his phone number with men he believed to be Sinaloa Cartel members, meaning they needed to call him through Pickering-Maynard. He did, however, give them the gate code at his teenage daughter’s Miami apartment building. The supposed drug runners did not ask for her address. Fahie volunteered it.
A DEA agent testified, “The plan the next day was to pick up the defendant from the address he gave us, and from there to take him to the airport. We were going to show the defendant the $700,000.”
The undercover agents told Fahie his $500,000 and Pickering-Maynard’s $200,000 would come from a fictional $1 million drug deal they’d just completed. Fahie asked if the money could be hidden in a suitcase with a secret compartment. It was eventually put in luxury retail brand boxes.
At Fahie’s daughter’s apartment, the agents posing as criminals helped load Fahie’s luggage into their car. The BVI leader thought he was being flown from Miami to Philadelphia by the cartel.
Fahie had asked if they could use a Sinaloa Cartel private plane to fly his 18-year-old daughter to college. Fahie had requested a flight to Lehigh Valley International Airport in Allentown, Pennsylvania, but the agents posing as smugglers said the cartel plane did not fly there.
In the car on the way to the airport, the undercover officers in the front seats distracted Fahie with small talk so the then-BVI premier would not spot other law enforcement vehicles following behind. They didn’t have to work too hard as Fahie took a call from a friend or relative along the way.
At Miami-Opa Locka Executive Airport, the teenager waited in the lobby while her father went on the tarmac to inspect the money aboard the small private plane.
A law enforcement officer pretending to be the pilot walked Fahie out to the aircraft.
Fahie was photographed with a Louis Vuitton box full of money on his lap. He was arrested almost immediately after.
It was not clear what happened to Fahie’s daughter after the arrest or when and how she learned of it.
After the arrest, the agents quickly reset for a similar performance for Pickering Maynard, who was in charge of arranging the money transfer.
Fahie had essentially sold the BVI to the Sinaloa Cartel, both prosecutors and the federal judge said.
Fahie told agents posing as drug runners that he’d ensure the BVI acted as a shipping agent for cocaine smugglers. All the criminals needed to do was say when they were coming and when they wanted to leave.
“So what our company do is just clear you to come in just to be — give the clearance and then, and then, see what time you are leaving. Come in and be like a broker,” Fahie was recorded saying, according to the transcript.
Fahie said he could help Sinaloa Cartel representatives get BVI passports.
Fahie assured the undercover officers that Pickering-Maynard was clearing government red tape for the smuggling operation: “I am going to get her going with all the necessary licenses, we got to work on them very quickly,” Fahie was recorded saying, according to the transcript.
If the plan were real and followed through on, BVI officials were supposed to allow eight shipments of cocaine to come through undetected before busting a dummy boat laden with low-quality cocaine — then eight more and another dummy. This was to give the impression of a robust antidrug trafficking operation in the BVI.
U.S. Assistant District Attorney Kevin Gerarde said Fahie had betrayed his countrymen.
“At the time of this event, the defendant was the elected premier of the British Virgin Islands, and he met with someone who he believed to be a member of the Sinaloa Cartel; someone who told this defendant he wanted to move not hundreds but thousands of kilograms of cocaine through the British Virgin Islands on route to the United States,” Gerarde said at Fahie’s July 15 sentencing. “And the defendant, knowing that, agreed to go along with it.”
“What he basically did is he took the British Virgin Islands and sold the island and himself to the Sinaloa Cartel. The government believes that is an extremely severe offense and that a guideline sentence at the bottom of the guidelines will appropriately reflect the severity of that offense,” the prosecutor said.
Judge Kathleen Williams agreed.
“The confidential source clearly identified himself as a representative of the Sinaloa Cartel. I don’t believe anyone of Mr. Fahie’s educational or political background could misunderstand what that meant for him or for the BVI. And when a government official uses his or her own position to personally profit by this type of activity, it is indeed a violation of public trust. It undermines public safety; and is the ultimate betrayal of a government official to their own citizens in terms of their lives and their community. And so the idea that the Maynards and Mr. Fahie were going to take the BVI from being a renowned tourist destination to a hub for narco-trafficking is beyond the definition of a serious offense,” Williams said at the sentencing hearing.
Law enforcement went deep undercover to snare Fahie.
Fahie’s attorneys had asked several times for the identity of the informant who made more than 8,000 minutes of audio recordings where Fahie, Maynard, and undercover police discussed the plan. The informant, going by Roberto, did not even share his real name with other law enforcement agents.
The agents made up another cartel operative named Charlie, who arranged private air travel for smuggling associates. They also invented two cartel-run construction companies.
Fahie used the code name Head Coach in the scheme. Pickering Maynard used the alias Rose P. Her son went by his usual nickname, Blacka.
The Maynards introduced Fahie to the supposed cartel operatives on April 7, 2022. Pickering-Maynard testified Fahie initially didn’t know the plan involved cocaine. Fifteen days later, all three conspirators were in handcuffs.
Fahie fell for a DEA “special sauce” lie that the judge found unrealistic.
The government agents’ phony cocaine-smuggling scheme included a bizarre twist. The fictitious narcotics were going to be prepared in a way that kept them from testing positive for cocaine. Then, after passing Customs inspections in Puerto Rico, the pseudo-drugs would be treated to restore their narcotic elements.
At Fahie’s sentencing, Judge Williams asked why the government had bothered to concoct the hard-to-believe “magic cocaine” lie.
“Just out of curiosity — since this was, in fact, a DEA case — why were there these discussions about the new magic cocaine that was undetectable until they added the special sauce; and in all places, Puerto Rico? Why even add that into the mix so to speak,” the judge asked.
Prosecutor Gerarde said he did not know, but Fahie only had to believe he was agreeing with a plot to smuggle cocaine, even if there was no real contraband involved, to be found guilty.
Judge Williams said the fanciful magic cocaine subplot muddied what could have been a clearer presentation.
“Yes. But I was curious as to why, in fact, our confidential source spun this particular tale. I understand the idea of no detection — and I think it was referred to at some point during trial as magic cocaine. But then this idea that it would somehow be made viable in Puerto Rico, of all places, sort of set us all aback,” she said.
Fahie said he used a regular smuggler and mindreader.
Fahie told the undercover officers he was accustomed to illegal activities, including hiding money, saying, “not my first rodeo.”
In addition to having a regular smuggler named Tattoo who helped him, Fahie also believed he had a clairvoyant who would know if someone was dishonest. Fahie said this fortuneteller was “99.9 percent accurate.”
The mindreader wasn’t needed, however, because Fahie believed he could tell a liar by their eyes. According to the transcript, he was recorded telling the DEA agents posing as drug runners, “When I met you I could read the eyes — I know that you weren’t a fake.”
Fahie wanted to be partially paid in construction materials for his home.
Once the operation got going, Fahie hoped to clear $3 million in profits for every shipment successfully sold in the United States.
Fahie was worried, the DEA agent said, about bank accounts attracting law enforcement attention. “Accounts will be a problem, no, I will have to set those up properly.”
The supposed cartel representatives were also going to extend a $35,000 line of credit to help Fahie build a home, and potentially send him $300,000 worth of building materials through a make-believe cartel-run construction company. Fahie asked that the money be taken from his share of profits from the cocaine import-export scheme.
Fahie brought up the construction materials several times on the recordings, according to the transcripts.
The fictional cocaine — arriving from Colombia to Tortola before being moved to Puerto Rico and then Miami and New York — was going to cost the supposed drug runners $650 per kilogram to make.
At one point, Pickering-Maynard tried to hide from Fahie plans for her $200,000 cartel payment, according to the transcript.
The Maynards told undercover DEA agents they had “taken care of” airport tower personnel and BVI Customs and Immigration agents to ensure certain bags and vessels were not inspected.
Oleanvine Pickering Maynard and her son planned to import cocaine for sale in the BVI
Both Maynards — mother and son — were involved in a so-called side deal that would have imported cocaine into the BVI for local sale without Fahie’s knowledge.
“The side deal that he is not charged with involved bringing 60 kilos of cocaine at a time into the Virgin Islands for Kadeem Maynard with the assistance of his mother, Oleanvine Maynard, for approximately $11,000 a kilogram,” attorneys told the court.
Pickering-Maynard had been the Ports Authority managing director since March 2021 after serving as deputy managing director from 2019. In 2015, she launched her unsuccessful bid to unseat Kedrick Pickering, who represented Tortola’s 7th District. She called herself the candidate for reform and action.
In their evidence against Pickering-Maynard in the alleged cocaine-smuggling plot, U.S. prosecutors quoted an unnamed alleged international drug runner as saying he “owned” her.
Both Maynards were released early.
Kadeem Maynard was released from prison in April after serving less than 36 months of his 57-month sentence.
Judge Williams had granted Oleanvine Pickering-Maynard a sentence reduction because of reported health issues. She was released to a Baltimore halfway house in February and was set free in March. She was incarcerated for less than three years since her April 2022 arrest.
Fahie’s position as premier may have led to a longer sentence but Kadeem Maynard lacked the “intellectual heft” to lead the scheme, the judge said.
In arguing for the same “minor role” status that gave the Maynards lesser punishments, Fahie’s attorneys said the person who instigated the disastrous smuggling plot, Kadeem Maynard, was punished least.
Judge Williams said prosecutors may be “conflating Mr. Fahie’s position with the actions that he took in this particular conspiracy,” but the younger Maynard lacked capacity for much more.
“He may have been the genesis, but I do not think that Mr. Maynard has the intellectual heft to do anything other than what he was told. He is not someone to whom you would assign anything of moment to be implemented; and so that is why I believe he got that minor role,” the judge said at Fahie’s sentencing hearing. “I think the most powerful attribute that he had is that he had a mother who was trying her mightiest to keep him housed and employed. But other than that, I don’t really think he had any agency that would translate into anything other than the sentence he was given.”
Later at the sentencing hearing, Judge Williams explained the sentencing disparity between the three convicts.
“Ms. Maynard operated at the direction of Mr. Fahie, who was her supervisor, and who influenced her behavior from a position of strength. And also her son influenced her because of his weakness,” the judge said.
Shortly after his arrest, Fahie had tried to avoid charges by claiming he was a BVI “head of state” and thus enjoyed diplomatic immunity. In October 2022, BVI police arrested Najan Christopher, the British overseas territory’s assistant secretary of external affairs, for allegedly creating and mailing an unauthorized letter to the court demanding Fahie’s release. The court rejected the idea.
After sentencing Fahie, Judge Williams said, “Good luck to you, Mr. Fahie. We are adjourned.”
That was not the end, however, as soon after two jurors seemed to not understand, or have misgivings, about their role in the verdict. Newly released documents give insight into the legal process of sorting the mess but, in the end, Fahie remained guilty.
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has granted Fahie’s attorneys three extensions. The next deadline for Fahie’s appeal brief is Jan. 16.
Fahie, many said, was an otherwise model citizen and prisoner.
In many letters to Judge Williams before Fahie’s sentencing, friends and family outlined the BVI leader’s many positive attributes. He was an active church member, an attentive mentor, helped young people obtain college degrees, and was someone who helped place foster children.
Between his conviction and sentencing, Fahie mentored other prisoners while in the federal detention center, his attorney Richard Della Fera said.
“He has been coordinating assisting Spanish speakers learning English, and English speakers learning Spanish. He has been teaching guitar, teaching music classes. He has been helping inmates that are trying to attain their GED; he is assisting them in their studies. He is also participating in church as well as the various counseling programs that are available. I think that it would probably not be a surprise to know that, your honor, given what we know about how he has spent his life in his community; helping people that are less fortunate than him. So even in a situation where he is incarcerated and is limited in his ability to help people, he is helping them in whatever ways that he can, and he is doing so willingly. No one has asked him to do it; and he hasn’t done it based on any expectation of any sort of reward. He is doing it because that is the kind of person that he is; when he sees someone who needs help, he offers help,” Della Fera said.
Judge Williams said the criminal conspiracy seemed out of character for Fahie.
“And so it is inexplicable how Mr. Fahie lost his way and became involved in this sort of scheme,” Williams said before sentencing Fahie to 135 months in prison.
It was not, however, the first time Fahie had been investigated for potential money laundering.
Arrested and released, then-BVI Ports Authority Deputy Chairman Roxane Sylvester was present at conversations about the scheme.
Sylvester was arrested along with Pickering-Maynard at Opa Locka Airport but only Pickering-Maynard was charged. The degree and nature of Sylvester’s involvement — or lack of involvement — in the events leading up the arrest remains unclear.
The court transcript didn’t say if Sylvester was to fly with Pickering-Maynard and the boxes of drug money. But Pickering-Maynard was recorded saying Sylvester was nervous about an upcoming plane ride.
“I told her she’s going to be OK. She was concerned about the small flight,” Pickering-Maynard was recorded saying, according to the transcript.
Fahie told the undercover DEA agents he didn’t mind if Sylvester knew he was flying on a Sinaloa Cartel private plane. It was not clear from court filings if she did know, but attorneys for Fahie said later she did not have direct knowledge of the smuggling scheme.
Her arrest, however, may account for a statement made in June 2022 as Fahie was attempting to raise bail money.
When Albion Hodge posted $500,000 to assist in Fahie’s release in June 2022, the USVI and BVI businessman needed to convince the Florida judge that the money had not been obtained by some criminal enterprise. Hodge, who runs a ferry service, stated, without further explanation, that he was not now nor had ever been married to Roxane Sylvester. Hodge also said he was not the brother of Alvin Hodge — explaining to the court that Hodge was simply a very common BVI surname.
Albion and Alvin Hodge were not brothers but also not strangers. In 2002, U.S. and BVI authorities started investigating questionable telecommunications contracts in the construction of the Terrance B. Lettsome International Airport.
A new company started by Albion and Alvin Hodge, B&A Networking Services, was awarded a telecommunications contract despite the company having no experience or expertise in the field, investigators said. B&A Networking Services used a Banco Popular account in Tortola to collect close to $1.8 million, court records show. It was the same branch in which Sheila Fahie, Andrew Fahie’s wife, worked, investigators said.
Investigators alleged the Road Town branch was a central setting in the scheme.
Andrew Fahie, then the BVI’s 33-year-old Minister of Education and Culture, and his wife allegedly started receiving money from the B&A Network Services account and funneling it to Miami in a way that avoided detection.
Prosecutors investigated a complicated scheme of alleged payments and kickbacks. While court records don’t explain exactly how the alleged plot worked, they do show investigators claimed by April 2002, when BVI police started making arrests, that the Fahies were sneaking money to the U.S. mainland.
International travelers to the United States carrying more than $10,000 must list it on their Customs Declaration Form. The Fahies allegedly used couriers to carry $9,000 each, then give it back in Miami. They repeated this in June and also sent themselves money via Western Union, court records show, investigators alleged.
In October 2003, the U.S. government started investigating the Fahies for money laundering.
On Jan. 19, 2004, Albion Hodge, Bevis Sylvester, a budget coordinator, Berton Smith, a manager of the BVI government telephone services and Ludwis Allen Wheatley, the BVI’s financial secretary from 1998 until he was suspended from duties in March 2002, were sentenced after they pleaded guilty in a BVI court to deceptive business practices and related crimes. Hodge and Bevis Sylvester were sentenced to six months and fined. Wheatley and Smith were sentenced to nine months in prison and fined.
It was unclear if the investigation into the Fahies continued. It was also not clear if charges were ever leveled against Alvin Hodge, who continued to receive government contracts well after the B&A Network Services incident. A 2008 BVI Auditor General report listed Hodge as being paid $55,871.03 for road paving, fencing, and gut cleaning. The report begins with the motto, “Towards Greater Accountability.”
The BVI has not officially charged anyone locally in the scheme.
Some mysteries about the case remain, despite the transcripts. U.S. law enforcement was not able to identify a woman standing near Fahie’s daughter’s Miami apartment. One of the officers was recorded saying, “Good morning. God bless you” to the woman. Undercover officers peppered Fahie with questions about the woman, trying to discern if she was his wife, Sheila Fahie, as they drove the BVI premier to Opa Locka airport.
The identity of the man known only as Tattoo also remains unknown. Other BVI government employees potentially involved in the scheme could include law enforcement agents and port employees awaiting bribes — but none was named in released court filings.
If the scheme were real and not a U.S. federal agent sting, Premier Fahie planned to bribe Sylvester and BVI Customs Commissioner Wade Smith, and then instruct subordinates to bribe other law enforcement and port officials, prosecutors said in a June 28, 2024 court filing.
“The defendant personally recruited at least two accomplices in the cocaine importation scheme — Roxane Sylvester and Wade Smith,” prosecutors told the court in their filing. “The defendant described Sylvester as 110 percent his and that she could be trusted.”
In 2024, federal prosecutors revealed the names of people Fahie corresponded with shortly before his arrest. The partially-redacted list included W. Smith, R. Sylvester, and B. Sylvester. Inclusion on Fahie’s Pickering-Maynard’s call list isn’t an indication of any wrongdoing, but prosecutors thought the phone calls and messages were important enough to include as evidence.
All but two of the names on the evidence list were a first letter and a surname, like C. Maritza, M. Vanterpool, D. Osborne, C. Kettle, and R. Garaway. One exception was Royal Virgin Islands Police Force Commissioner Mark Collins.
Then-BVI Gov. John Rankin launched a probe into Collins in 2023 or early 2024 over a laundry list of complaints, including that he ordered officers to destroy evidence, according to local reports. Collins had been on the job since Jan. 18, 2021.
To date, the BVI has not announced charges against anyone in relation to the would-be smuggling scheme.
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