WIDESPREAD SUPPORT IN BVI TO GET ARRESTED PREMIER DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY FROM U.S. MONEY LAUNDERING AND DRUG CHARGES IS TROUBLING

Open public support for the BVI government official who brazenly attempted to secure diplomatic immunity for former Premier Andrew Fahie, when he was arrested in the US for money laundering and narcotics trafficking, is extremely disturbing.  NAJAN CHRISTOPHER, who was herself charged in the BVI when she created an official document, then delivered it to defense counsel, asserting that Fahie had diplomatic immunity from criminal prosecution in Florida, has never been brought to trial, and there are actually calls for her to run for major public office.

 This is indicative of a culture where the facilitation of organized crime, principally drug trafficking, is part and parcel of the territory's business model. The BVI corporation, with its built-in anonymity, is a favored vehicle among the world's money launderers, and the financial services industry which relies upon such dodgy clients, supports the territory's budget, which pays the salaries of government officials who might otherwise not be able to find employment in the small private sector. In plain English, global white collar crime, which needs those corporate services to evade detection and possible arrest, feeds the British Virgin Islands. It is the essence of the evils of an offshore tax haven jirisdiction.

For those readers who have not read our previous articles on the subject of the efforts of ex-Premier Fahie's supporters to extricate him from the Miami Federal criminal indictment, officials of a colonial possession of a European have zero diplomatic immunity full stop. The attempts to spring their leader, which have no basis in law, speaks volumes about the territory's raison d'etre .

Eventually, Fahie will go to trial in Miami, and his conviction, given the strength of the evidence against him, and the fact that his two co-defendants are cooperating, is most likely assured, but whether the BVI will ever clean up its corporate regime is doubtful. This means that compliance officers are always to regard BVI companies with suspicion, without exception, and to ramp uo enhanced due diligence when one is part of any transaction.