••• The Guardian Saturday 30 April 202244Britain set to impose direct
rule on British Virgin Islands
after premier arrested in US
Patrick Wintour
Diplomatic editorBritain is poised to impose a form
of direct rule over the British Virgin
Islands after the Caribbean ter ri-
tory’s premier was arrested in Miami
on suspicion of drug-running, and a
UK-appointed commission of inquiry
found rampant failings in governance.
Andrew Fahie appeared in court in
Miami yesterday, a day after he was
arrested by the US Drugs Enforce-
ment Agency in an elaborate sting
operation that also snared the chief
executive of the BVI port authority
and her son. Late last night it emerged
federal prosecutors had charged him
with cocaine traffi cking and money
laundering conspiracies.
Hours before his court appearance,
the commission of inquiry – launched
in 2021 – reported on widespread
abuses, including millions of dollars
of government funds that were spent
each year by politicians and minis-
tries without proper process.
The commission – led by Sir Gary
Hickinbottom , a retired British
judge – recommended that the ter-
ritory should have its constitution
suspended, its elected government
dissolved and in effect be ruled
from London. The foreign secre-
tary, Liz Truss, did not immediately
impose direct rule, but said the reportshowed “clearly that substantial leg-
islative and constitutional change is
required ”.
The UK is already responsible for
defence and foreign policy in the
BVI, a British overseas territory, but
the governor general, John Rankin ,
is now expected to take charge of all
domestic policy and budgets.
The report is not directly linked to
Fahie’s arrest, but the UK government
had clearly been aware of the DEA
investigation. After the sting oper-
ation on Thursday, British ministers
decided to rush out publication of the
Hickinbottom report.
The UK last imposed direct rule
on an overseas territor y when it
took charge of the Turks and Caicos
Islands in 2009, and the government
is clearly nervous over how its plans
will be greeted on the islands.
Amanda Milling, the minister for
overseas territories, is to fl y to the BVI
to meet local offi cials.
Allegations of rampant criminality
on the BVI had prompted starkly con-
trasting approaches from the US and
UK , with the latter adopting a pub-
lic commission of inquiry and theUS launching an undercover police
operation.
The BVI commission was launched
in 2021 amid allegations of corrup-
tion and drug-running at the highest
level. Those claims were not inves-
tigated by the commission, but its
1,000-page report concluded that
maladministration was so endemic
that it would be impossible to prevent
confl icts of interest in the awarding
of contracts, appointments to public
offi ce and fi nancial administration.
The UK has come under increas-
ing pressure to tackle drug-traffi cking
through the territory, which has
become a major conduit for narcot-
ics into the US.
At a court hearing conducted via
Zoom yesterday, Fahie did not speak
other than to state his name and date
of birth and agree for the hearing to
be held online. A bond hearing was
set for Wednesday.
In his report, Hickinbottom
insisted the suspension of the pow-
ers of elected ministers “was not only
warranted but essential if the abuses
which I have identifi ed are to be tack-
led and brought to an end”. He said
that successive BVI governments had
“deliberately sought to avoid good
governance by not putting processes
in place and, where such processes
are in place, bypassing them or ignor-
ing them as and when they wish- which is regrettably often”.
Andrew Fahie,
the British
Virgin Islands
premier, who
was detained
on Thursday
PHOTOGRAPH:
RICKI RICHARDSON‘Head coach wants to play’
Inside the drug sting that
led to leader’s detention
Patrick Wintour
Diplomatic editorI
n mid -October, as Sir Gary
Hickinbottom’s commission
of inquiry into the British
Virgin Islands government –
led by the premier, Andrew
Fahie – was taking laborious
public evidence for a 44 th day, a US
Drug Enforcement Administration
informant was, according to
court papers, meeting some self-
proclaimed Lebanese Hezbollah
operatives on the BVI island of
Tortola to discuss how to shift
cocaine through the territory en
route to Puerto Rico and the US.Hickinbottom was taking mind -
numbingly dull evidence on how
to apply for BVI citizenship, and
whether the process was open to
manipulation. The DEA source
acting as a Mexican drug -runner,
meanwhile, according to the court
papers, was setting up a series of
meetings that was to conclude with
the arrest on Thursday of Fahie
on board a private jet in Miami
where he was allegedly being
shown bags containing $700,000 as
payment for the intended storage
of 3,000 kg of cocaine for four days.
The payment was to keep the stash
from the inquiring eyes of the port
authorities and police, the papers
fi led in Florida claim.Fahie was expected to appear in
court in Miami yesterday.
Ironically, the day before, Fahie,
unaware that all his meetings were
being recorded and videoed, had
confi ded to the person he thought
was the Mexican drug -runner –
who was in fact a DEA informant- that he “believed in witches
and magic and how to read lies in
people”, according to the papers.
The contrast between the
stately evidence -gathering of the
commission of inquiry and the
methods of the US police agencies
could not be more stark: Yes
Minister meets Miami Vice.
Indeed, before his arrest on
Thursday, Fahie had thought
he would survive politically, an
interview with the Guardian in
November suggested. He believed
the Hickinbottom inquiry might
reveal maladministration , but
overall the initial lurid allegations
of corruption made at the
commission’s launch by Augustus
Jaspert , the previous BVI governor ,
in January 2021 were, he thought,
going to be unprove d.
Fahie and his fellow ministers- represented at the inquiry by
the Conservative MP and former
attorney general Sir Geoff rey Cox - had used the court hearings to
mount a counter case alleging the
colonial UK government had been
improperly interfering with the
work of the elected politicians.
Cox, whose work for the BVI
resulted in allegations that he was
moonlighting , had been assiduous
in arguing that London had over-
reached its mandate.
Hickinbottom submitted his
report to John Rankin, the current
governor , before Easter, for a
deferred publication probably
in June. There is no indication
whether or not he knew of the DEA
sting operation.
Certainly, it is clear from the
affi davit submitted to the Miami
court on Thursday that the DEA
operation had been under way
since October. But it was not
until 20 March that the BVI port
authority managing director,1,000
Number of pages in a report into
corruption and drug-running in
the British Virgin Islands