US attorneys for a Russian woman seeking to recover a megayacht target Antigua

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Attorneys for the girl of a U.S.-sanctioned Russian billionaire asked a U.S. national tribunal Tuesday for entree to the fiscal records of officials including the premier curate of Antigua and Barbuda, whose medication is nether scrutiny for seizing and selling the family’s 265-foot (81-meter) megayacht and not releasing documents related to the sale.

The filing is the latest improvement successful a planetary ineligible saga involving the Alfa Nero megayacht, which remained anchored disconnected the eastbound Caribbean land of Antigua for much than 2 years and whose imaginable buyers included erstwhile Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

The megayacht, abandoned by Andrey Guryev, a Russian businessman who founded a fertilizer company, is being sought by his daughter, Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov, who claims she is the rightful owner.

As portion of the effort to retrieve the megayacht, her attorneys stated successful the filing that they question documents and accusation related to ligament transfers and different transactions involving 7 radical and 12 entities successful the past 5 years.

“The disappearance of millions from the merchantability of the Alfa Nero is conscionable the beginning," said Martin De Luca, with Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, adding that the find seeks to uncover whether immoderate alleged backroom deals for idiosyncratic enrichment took place.

The radical targeted see Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne, his wife, their lad and Antigua’s wide accountant and its larboard manager.

The entities see West Indies Oil Company Ltd., an Antigua-based petroleum retention and organisation institution of which the authorities is simply a bulk shareholder, and Fancy Bridge Ltd., a Hong Kong-based concern steadfast that owns shares successful the lipid company, arsenic does Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., known arsenic PDVSA.

A megayacht sanctioned, past auctioned

Alfa Nero was anchored disconnected Antigua erstwhile the warfare successful Ukraine began successful February 2022.

The vas was not sanctioned by the U.S. authorities astatine the time, but officials successful Antigua prohibited the megayacht from departing for months, according to the filing.

In August 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Guryev, saying helium was portion of a radical of “Kremlin-connected elites” and “a known adjacent associate” of Russian President Vladimir Putin, having antecedently served successful his government. The section besides designated Guryev’s superyacht arsenic “blocked property,” and said its determination tracking was turned disconnected “to debar seizure.”

“As guiltless radical endure from Russia’s amerciable warfare of aggression, Putin’s allies person enriched themselves and funded opulent lifestyles,” said then-Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

In June 2023, the superyacht was removed from the sanctions database truthful Antigua could liquidate it. By then, the island’s authorities had amended a section enactment to let officials to state vessels arsenic abandoned and merchantability them astatine auction, a measurement they took with Alfa Nero.

Schmidt, Google’s erstwhile CEO, won the highest bid astatine $67 cardinal but aboriginal dropped out, arsenic did different bidders.

In July 2024, the authorities of Antigua and Barbuda sold it to an anonymous purchaser for a reported $40 million, according to the filing, which noted that the vas primitively was valued astatine an estimated $120 million. It noted that backstage investigators aboriginal identified the buyers arsenic Robert Yildirim and Ali Riza Yildirim of the Yildirim Group, a Turkish operation and shipping conglomerate.

The conglomerate did not instantly instrumentality a connection seeking comment.

‘No longer available’

Following the sale, Antigua’s premier curate came nether occurrence by absorption enactment members who demanded details of however the proceeds were spent. They person yet to person immoderate information.

“The premier curate does not springiness accusation but what helium wants radical to know,” said D. Gisele Isaac, chairperson of the absorption United Progressive Party. “Up to now, helium has ne'er disclosed to america the sanction of the idiosyncratic who bought Alfa Nero.”

Isaac noted that portion Antigua and Barbuda has a Freedom of Information Act, an accusation commissioner appointed past twelvemonth has nary carnal office.

“There is obscurity to petition accusation adjacent if they were inclined to springiness it,” she said of the existent administration, adding that she believes proceeds from the yacht merchantability should spell to helping rebuild Ukraine.

Browne’s wife, Maria Browne, Antigua’s Minister of Housing, told The Antigua Observer paper successful July 2024 that the proceeds were utilized to wage disconnected authorities debt. Days earlier the study was published, the premier curate had said his medication was considering utilizing the wealth to physique a resort.

The filing noted that astir $10 cardinal remains unaccounted for and that investigators successful the lawsuit were told the merchantability documents “were nary longer disposable due to the fact that they had seemingly gone missing.”

Gaston Browne did not instantly instrumentality a connection for comment.

Legal cases related to Alfa Nero besides are ongoing successful Russia and the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. One lawsuit alleges that the seizure and merchantability of the megayacht is unconstitutional, with Browne antecedently claiming that the suit earlier the determination tribunal filed by Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov was “frivolous.”

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