UK ‘APPALLED’ OVER BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS LEADER’S ARREST IN UNITED STATES

LONDON: The UK government said it was “appalled” after the British Virgin Islands (BVI) leader was arrested in the United States to face charges over alleged drugs trafficking and money laundering.

Premier Andrew Fahie and the BVI’s chief port official were arrested at a Miami-area airport after a sting operation by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

“I am appalled by these serious allegations,” British foreign secretary Liz Truss said in a statement late on Thursday.

The self-governing Caribbean archipelago is home to some 35,000 people and is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom, which supervises its defence and foreign policy.

DEA agents at the MiamiOpa-locka Executive Airport took Fahie and BVI Port Authority managing director Oleanvine Maynard into custody after they allegedly agreed to accept money from undercover agents posing as Mexican drug traffickers, the Miami Herald newspaper reported.

Fahie and Maynard were to inspect a plane carrying $700,000 that they would receive in exchange for facilitating cocaine shipments through the territory, reported the Herald, citing US authorities.

Meanwhile, the British Virgin Islands should have its constitution and elected government suspended and effectively be returned to direct rule from London, a highly critical inquiry into governance in the British overseas territory said on Friday. The recommendation came from an inquiry commissioned in 2021 by Queen Elizabeth’s representative on the island, Governor John Rankin, to investigate “the corruption, abuse of office, and other serious dishonesty” in the territory’s governance.