The Sunday Times May 1, 2022 5NEWS
Virgin Islands leader in drug sting faced corruption questions 20 years ago
agent posing as a trafficker
from a Mexican drugs cartel.
He has been charged with
conspiracy to import at least
5kg of cocaine and
conspiracy to launder money
after allegedly agreeing to let
traffickers ship drugs through
BVI ports from Colombia in
return for $700,000.
According to US
prosecutors, Fahie is alleged
to have complained to the
undercover agent that Britain
“didn’t pay him much”.
His arrest, alongside that of
Oleanvine Maynard, director
of the BVI Ports Authority,
and her son, Kadeem, has led
to a constitutional crisis.
Liz Truss, the foreign
secretary, said she was
sending a government
minister after a damning
report into corruption and
cronyism in the BVI.
An inquiry led by Sir Gary
Hickinbottom, a retired
British judge, has
recommended that theworked at a branch of Banco
Popular. It is alleged that the
company awarded the airport
telecoms contract had
recently opened a bank
account at the branch.
The papers continue:
“Andrew Fahie in June 2002
paid the airfare for three
persons (the value of $1,300)
to travel to Florida, giving
them $27,000. The money
was shared between the three
travelling via St John in the US
Virgin Islands on to Miami.
The money was then handed
over to Andrew Fahie in a
Miami hotel.”
It is alleged that further
sums were transferred from a
branch of Western Union in
Tortola to the US.
“Andrew and Sheila Fahie
are believed to have collected
the cash in Miami together,”
the court documents said. “It
is believed that the manner of
the transfer and couriering of
the funds suggest that these
are the proceeds of crime.”Neither Andrew nor Sheila
Fahie was arrested and the
investigation was dropped.
Fahie’s arrest last week by
the US Drug Enforcement
Administration came after an
undercover agent posing as a
member of the Sinaloa cartel
met Maynard, the director of
the BVI’s ports authority.
In an indictment filed by
US prosecutors in the
southern district of Florida,
the agent claimed he needed
help to move thousands of
kilograms of cocaine from
Colombia through Tortola,
then launder the proceeds.
Maynard allegedly told him in
a taped conversation she was
confident Fahie would help.
“You see, with my premier,
he’s a little crook sometimes,”
she allegedly said.
When officers moved in on
Fahie, he protested: “Why am
I getting arrested? I don’t
have any money or drugs.”
Additional reporting:
Joey WaldingerThe premier of the British
Virgin Islands who has been
arrested in a multimillion-
pound US drugs sting was
investigated over money-
laundering allegations almost
20 years ago.
Andrew Fahie, 51, and his
wife, Sheila, 54, a banker,
were suspected of having
couriered “large sums of
money” to America during a
criminal investigation in
2003, court papers reveal.
Investigators alleged that
the couple laundered cash
stolen by others from a
corrupt government contract
to modernise the BVI’s main
airport. They denied any
wrongdoing and were never
charged.
Fahie, who has led the
British overseas territory
since February 2019, was
arrested at Miami airport on
Thursday after meeting a USHugo Daniel and
Dipesh Gadherenjoyed fine wines and rare malt whisky.
Earning an estimated £38 million in his
career on and off court he appeared to
enjoy spending on others. “He was very
generous, he always wanted to buy gifts
and presents for everybody,” the broad-
caster Annabel Croft, who has worked
with him at Wimbledon, told the BBC.
As his playing career began to fade,
Becker tried a bewildering variety of
business ventures. While still in his twen-
ties, he bought three Mercedes dealer-
ships in Germany. He also made lucrative
use of his name, whether for a tennis
academy and to sell wine in China, or to
promote mobile phones in Slovenia. His
judgment was often poor and he was
reported to have lost a good slice of theIn the weeks before Boris Becker was sen-
tenced at Southwark crown court to two
and a half years in jail, the three-time
Wimbledon champion made visits to the
London Oratory Catholic church in
Knightsbridge to pray.
It had special significance for the
former altar boy. His eldest son, Noah,
28, was baptised there in 1998. Four years
later, Becker sought divine intervention
when he was last on trial over his finan-
ces, and his prayers were answered. Now
the father-of-four appeared to hope they
could keep him out of jail again.
“Boris is a very devout Catholic, so I’m
sure he did it to recharge his batteries and
to pray,” his biographer, Christian
Schommers, told a German magazine.
“He didn’t do it for show, but really to get
divine help.”
Sadly this time, neither God nor the
judge, Deborah Taylor, seemed to pay
much heed. Becker, who had been rent-
ing a £22,000-a-month house in his
beloved Wimbledon, was told his home
for the foreseeable future would be two
miles away in a cell in Wandsworth jail.
The sentence, imposed on Becker, 54,
for concealing £2.5 million of assets after
he was declared bankrupt in 2017, dis-
mayed friends, family and admirers and
surprised some by its severity.
“I’m really in shock,” his daughter,
Anna Ermakova, 22, a London-based
model, said. “I will support him and I will
visit him whenever I can. I hope that will
help him a little to get through the time.”
She said she had written to the court
urging leniency for the sake of her half-
brother, Amadeus, 12, who would now be
deprived of a father figure. “It’s not fair to
him,” she told Germany’s Bild.
There was no word from Elvira, 86,
Becker’s Czech-born mother, who had
described her son as an “overall decent
boy” in an interview during the trial.
So how did it all go so desperately
wrong for the former golden boy of ten-
nis, who became the youngest player to
win the men’s championship at Wimble-
don in 1985 at 17 years, 227 days?
Becker’s descent is a long and tangled
story of money, women and of a man
who, off-court at least, simply proved
incapable of playing by the rules.
The son of an architect, Becker was
brought up in Leimen, a town of 26,
people near Heidelberg. After tasting
fame so young, he acquired a love of the
high life, smoked Cuban cigars andPeter Conradi, Hugo Daniel and
Rebecca MyersHopeless with money, Becker just
wanted to buy ‘gifts for everyone’
Friends of the jailed tennis star say he was generous to a fault, though his daughter’s pleas for leniency couldn’t save him
Boris Becker on
the way to his
first Wimbledon
title in 1985; at
court in London
last week with his
partner, Lilian de
Carvalho
Monteiro; and in
Munich with his
second wife, Lily,
in 2017. Far right,
his daughter
Anna Ermakovawas partly funded by the EU
— had no telecoms
qualifications or experience.
Fahie was then minister for
education and culture.
Court papers show that
BVI officers explicitly asked
for Detective Inspector
Robert Wishart, a former
head of economic crime at
City of London police, to be
told of developments by the
US officials. Wishart was then
attached to the FBI’s “white-
collar crime investigation
team” in Miami.
The court papers allege:
“On or about April 2002,
Andrew Fahie asked four
persons to travel to Miami,
Florida, with $9,000 each.
On arrival there they handed
the money over to Mr Fahie.
“One of the couriers
collected a further sum at a
Miami Western Union office
and handed it over to Fahie.
This had been sent by Fahie
from Tortola.” Tortola is the
island where Sheila FahieAndrew Fahie
and a woman
believed to be his
wife, Sheila, were
the subject of a
criminal
investigation in
2003 but faced
no chargesconstitution and elected
officials be suspended for two
years in favour of direct rule
by a UK-appointed governor.
Yet this is not the first time
Fahie has come under
criminal scrutiny. In 2003 the
Royal Virgin Islands police
force asked US officials to
help to examine bank
accounts held in America by
Fahie and his wife after a
series of transactions were
allegedly linked to “proceeds
of crime”, according to an
official request for assistance
filed by BVI prosecutors at
the western district court of
North Carolina.
Investigators claimed that
tens of thousands of dollars
were shifted from the BVI to
the US after a government
contract for
telecommunications at
Terrence B Lettsome
International Airport was
awarded. There were
concerns that the company
awarded the contract — whichwere still together when their
children reached the age of
13-15 were married.
Parents across all income
groups who had not tied the
knot were three times more
likely to break up.
“People who pretend there
is no difference between
cohabitation and marriage
have not tried both!” said Sir
Paul Coleridge, a former
judge who founded the
Marriage Foundation in 2012.
He said it transformed the
psychological approach to
the relationship.
Marriage rates have fallen
since 1972, the year they
peaked in England and Wales.
First-time brides are now 30
on average, while first-time
grooms are 32 — nine years
older than in 1973.study shows that being
married has more bearing on
staying together than wealth.
Bruce Paltrow, the film
director father of the actress
Gwyneth, had been married
to her mother, Blythe Danner,
for 33 years when he died in- He claimed the secret
was that they “never wanted
to get divorced at the same
time”.
Rita Rudner, the American
comedian who married the
British producer Martin
Bergman in 1988, said: “Men
who have a pierced ear are
better prepared for marriage:
they’ve experienced pain and
bought jewellery.”
The study, using data from
the UK Longitudinal
Household Survey, found that
86 per cent of parents who
On their wedding day, many
brides and grooms vow to
take their spouse “for richer,
for poorer” until “death do us
part”. Now research has
found that those who get
married are much more likely
to stay together — whatever
their bank balance.
According to a study by the
Marriage Foundation, more
married couples on low
incomes remain together
than the richest couples who
cohabit.
Research has previously
shown that poorer couples
are less likely to get married
and if they do, are more likely
to divorce. But the
researchers argue that theRosamund Urwin and
Nicholas Hellen
Noel Clarke is suing Bafta for
defamation after the arts
organisation suspended his
membership in the wake of
allegations of sexual
harassment and bullying.
The actor, who played
Mickey Smith in Doctor Who,
filed papers at the High Court
last week.
Bafta also suspended
Clarke’s award for
outstanding contribution to
British cinema after an
investigation in The Guardian
that included claims made by
20 women of verbal abuse,
bullying and sexual
harassment. Clarke, 46,
vehemently denies the
allegations.Actor sues Bafta over
sex claims suspension
He had been one of
Britain’s most prolific actors
and film-makers over the past
two decades, starring in the
Kidulthood, Adulthood and
Brotherhood trilogy.
Last month the
Metropolitan Police said that
detectives had carried out a
“thorough assessment” of
the allegations but
“determined the
information would not
meet the threshold
for a criminal
investigation”.
A Bafta
spokesman
said: “A year
ago, Bafta was
transparent aboutSam Chambers and
Rosamund Urwinwhat led to Mr Clarke’s award
and membership being
suspended. We stand by our
decision and are very
surprised he now wishes to
sue. If proceedings are
served, we will of course
defend ourselves”.
Clarke is also suing The
Guardian Media Group,
which first published the
allegations last April, as
well as Condé Nast, which
owns titles including
GQ, which ran an
interview with the
two journalists
who broke the
story. A Guardian
spokesman said it
stood by its reporting.
Condé Nast did not
respond to a request
for comment.£8 million he invested in the Nigerian oil
and gas industry in 2017.
Becker continued to benefit from such
deals in recent years after becoming a
commentator for the BBC. “Corporate
gigs were a huge cash cow for him and the
likes of [ John] McEnroe, who could pick
up thousands for half an hour’s work,”
said one source, who praised him as a
brilliant broadcaster. “What really stood
out to me was his humour. He has a really
dry wit, and remember that he is doing
this in his second language.”
John Lloyd, the broadcaster and
former player, told Today on Radio 4 that
players could struggle after leaving ten-
nis. “They still have to wake up in the
morning and they have to try to get thatadrenaline rush,” he said. But Becker had
hidden any concerns he had while in the
commentary box. “We would hang out in
our production office between matches,
he was his normal self and would join in
the banter, didn’t really seem to have
much of a care.”
With Becker likely to serve at most half
of his sentence, he is likely to be released
shortly before next year’s Wimbledon,
leaving the BBC with the tricky decision
whether to re-hire him.
Becker’s financial difficulties
appeared to have begun after the birth in
1999 of Anna, conceived while his first
wife, Barbara Feltus, was pregnant with
their second child. She divorced him. He
later revealed that Anna was the fruit of a
brief encounter in the broom cupboard
of the Park Lane Nobu with Angela Erma-
kova, a Russian model. He called it the
“most expensive five seconds of my life”.
Becker told the court that he gave
Feltus their house in Miami, a £2 million
settlement and £19,000 a month mainte-
nance for their two children. There was
also a payout for Angela Ermakova to
help her bring up their daughter, which
included provision of a £2.5 million
apartment in Chelsea, southwest Lon-
don, until she completed university.
Becker’s financial affairs were already
under scrutiny in Germany. In Decem-
ber 1996, a criminal investigation had
begun into allegations that he had
dodged German taxes. He was found
guilty and fined, but a two-year jail
sentence was suspended.
Becker told the British court
that his earnings “decreased
dramatically” in 2013 because
“my image was not as good”.
He owed £4 million tax in
Switzerland, £840,000 in
Germany, and had “exten-
sive lifestyle commit-
ments”. He borrowed
£3.85 million from the
private bank Arbuthnot
Latham in 2013 and
£1.2 million the next
year from John Caud-
well, 69, founder of
Phones4u at an interest
rate of 25 per cent.
The Caudwell loan was secured on a
property in Mallorca which Becker had
bought in 1995 before spending several
million pounds turning into a luxurious
estate. He put the property on the market
for £10 million in 2007. But for reasons
that are not clear, it never found a buyer.
@Peter_ConradiWimbledon
was Becker’s
cash cowBOB MARTIN; WIKTOR SZYMANOWICZ; GISELA SCHOBER/GETTY IMAGESNoel Clarke was a
prolific film-maker86%
Poor married couples more likely to stay
the distance than wealthy cohabitees
Of the couples still
together when their
children became
teenagers, nearly
nine in ten were
married