US federal judge allows attorneys to subpoena financial records in Antigua yacht case

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A federal judge in New York granted the attorneys of a Russian woman permission Monday to issue subpoenas to access the financial records of Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister and other officials involved in the sale of a megayacht that her father had abandoned.

The attorneys must first notify Prime Minister Gaston Browne and others before serving subpoenas on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the U.S.-based Clearing House Payments Co.

“The financial records will speak for themselves,” said Martin De Luca, with Boies Schiller Flexner LLP.

He is one of the attorneys for Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov, who claims she is the rightful owner of the Alfa Nero megayacht, which remained anchored off Antigua for a couple months before the local government seized and sold it last year.

Browne did not immediately respond to a message for comment regarding the judge’s ruling.

The attorneys for Guryeva-Motlokhov alleged in a March 11 filing in federal court that Browne’s administration has not released documents related to the $40 million sale of the yacht, once owned by Andrey Guryev, a Russian businessman who founded a fertilizer company and worked in the Russian government.

He was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in August 2022, and the megayacht was removed from the sanctions list in June 2023 so Antigua could liquidate it.

Antigua’s opposition leaders also have demanded details of how the proceeds from the yacht sale were spent.

Browne has said that details related to the yacht sale are public. On Sunday, he sent The Associated Press several documents he said showed those details.

“This is irrefutable evidence that the claim that $10M is missing from the proceeds is a fabrication,” he wrote in a message, referring to claims made in the March 11 filing.

However, key information was redacted in bank payment/transfer forms that made it difficult to confirm details of the loans and advances.

Browne also accused Guryeva-Motlokhov of defamation.

In July 2024, Browne’s wife, Maria Browne, Antigua’s Minister of Housing, told The Antigua Observer newspaper that the proceeds were used to pay off government debt. Days before the report was published, the prime minister had said his administration was considering using the money to build a resort.

Attorneys for Guryeva-Motlokhov are seeking documents and information related to wire transfers and other transactions involving the prime minister and six other people, as well as 12 entities, in the past five years.

The people targeted include Browne, his wife, their son and Antigua’s general accountant and its port manager.

The entities include West Indies Oil Co. Ltd., an Antigua-based petroleum storage and distribution company of which the government is a majority shareholder, and Fancy Bridge Ltd., a Hong Kong-based investment firm that owns shares in the oil company, as does Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., known as PDVSA.

The institutions that the attorneys plan to subpoena are required to comply with the request for information unless Browne or someone else files a motion opposing the subpoenas.

Legal cases related to Alfa Nero also are ongoing in Russia and the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.