A U.S. court docket has sentenced a British Virgin Islands chief, who pledged to wash up the Caribbean archipelago‘s repute as a tax haven, to greater than a decade in jail for cocaine trafficking and cash laundering conspiracies.
Earlier this yr, the previous BVI premier and finance minister, Andrew Alturo Fahie, was convicted at trial of agreeing to facilitate the secure passage of 1000’s of kilograms of Colombian cocaine by BVI ports en path to Miami. He was sentenced in Florida final week to 135 months in jail.
Fahie was arrested in April 2022 by the U.S. Medication Enforcement Company after its brokers pretended to be members of the Sinaloa cartel — as soon as run by the infamous Mexican drug lord El Chapo — to lure Fahie to the USA, the place he agreed to the pretend smuggling scheme.
In September 2020, Fahie pledged BVI would introduce a public register of firm homeowners within the secrecy jurisdiction.
“In advancing this dedication, we shall be knowledgeable always by world greatest apply on the time inside a timeframe that we contemplate deliverable,” Fahie mentioned.
Reform plans for the proposed register have stalled.
The BVI, an abroad territory of the UK consisting of 4 fundamental islands and greater than 50 smaller ones east of Puerto Rico, has a well-documented historical past of being misused by drug traffickers, tax evaders and cash launderers.
The islands, and secretive entities created there by monetary providers suppliers, have performed an outsized function in main ICIJ investigations since 2013.
As a part of the 2013 Offshore Leaks investigation, reporters recognized the oldest daughter of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos as a beneficiary of a BVI belief. ICIJ additionally recognized BVI firms owned by the son of a former South Korean president embroiled in a tax evasion scandal and of China’s former ruler, Wen Jiabao.
The 2015 Swiss Leaks investigation revealed that HSBC Personal Financial institution in Switzerland helped clients arrange shell firms in BVI to skirt a brand new tax legislation.
BVI was the secrecy jurisdiction of alternative for purchasers of the Panama-based legislation agency Mossack Fonseca, in accordance with an ICIJ evaluation of leaked recordsdata that fashioned the idea of the 2016 Panama Papers investigation. Mossack Fonseca created greater than 113,000 BVI firms, which outstripped Panama because the world’s hottest tax haven.
In line with proof launched at Fahie’s trial, throughout March and April 2022, Fahie, a BVI ports official and the official’s son participated in a collection of conferences with the purported Sinaloa Cartel drug trafficker to dealer the association.
Fahie and the 2 others “agreed to safe licenses, defend the cocaine-filled boats whereas in BVI’s ports, and grease the palms of BVI authorities officers and workers,” in accordance with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace, Southern District of Florida. The group mentioned bringing 3,000 kilograms of cocaine by a BVI port as a take a look at run, U.S. authorities mentioned, adopted by 3,000 kilograms a few times a month for 4 months. In alternate, Fahie and the port director would get a proportion of the tens of millions of {dollars} in cocaine gross sales.
A 2022 Transparency Worldwide report discovered “endemic issues” with the BVI because the “vacation spot of alternative for the corrupt and different criminals to cover and launder their ill-gotten beneficial properties.”
