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HomeNewsLocal newsU.S. Appeals Fahie Bail, Maynard Extradited to Miami

U.S. Appeals Fahie Bail, Maynard Extradited to Miami

BVI Premier Andrew Fahie with Minister for Overseas Territories Amanda Milling in 2021. Fahie is now facing drug smuggling and money laundering charges, and Milling is now considering suspending local governance and returning the islands to UK rule for at least two years. (Photo: BVI Government Information Services)

BVI Premier Andrew Fahie remained in federal custody Thursday as prosecutors asked a Miami judge to reconsider bail.

Magistrate Judge Alicia Otazo-Reyes had ordered Fahie free on $500,000 bail Wednesday but gave prosecutors a day to appeal the decision. If he is freed, the disgraced BVI leader, his wife, and two daughters would have to surrender their passports and stay in the daughters’ Miami home. Fahie would also be required to wear electronic monitoring equipment.

It was not immediately clear when Judge Otazo-Reyes would rule on Fahie’s release. Prosecutors had said Fahie was a clear flight risk and a danger to the community.

Fahie, BVI Port Authority Director Oleanvine Pickering Maynard, and her son, Kadeem Maynard, also known as Blacka, have been charged with conspiracy to import more than 5 kilograms of cocaine and money laundering after their April 28 arrest.

Fahie and Pickering Maynard, who filed a notice with the court Thursday that she intends to remain silent, were arrested in Miami after inspecting what they believed to be $700,000 in their share of drug money, prosecutors said. Kadeem Maynard, who prosecutors said planned to launder money through a Florida real estate business, was arrested in St. Thomas and ordered extradited to Miami.

The trio’s arrest and a U.K.-government probe into corruption in the British overseas territory have upended the normally politically placid islands.

U.K. officials, led by Minister for Overseas Territories Amanda Milling, were considering whether to temporarily take full control of the BVI as a way to root out corruption.

On Thursday, BVI acting Premier Natalio Wheatley was sworn in as the premier of the new National Unity Government, comprising former members of the opposition National Democratic Party and the Peoples Virgin Islands Movement and the majority Virgin Islands Party, in a bid to stave off direct British rule.

Under this new arrangement, each party will be represented in Cabinet “to give the best political representation as a Government in working closely with the Governor and United Kingdom on reforms, which must go well beyond the Commission of Inquiry recommendations,” Wheatley said in a statement on Thursday.

Prior to the evening ceremony, Governor John Rankin revoked the appointments of all of the former BVI government ministers, including Fahie, so the new government could form. Hours earlier, the House of Assembly held a unanimous vote of no-confidence in Fahie to continue as premier.

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