A tragedy has been unraveling for fertilizer Russian oligarch Andrey Guryev, who invested time and effort into purchasing the Alfa Nero 257-foot superyacht in 2014 by via offshore shell companies to pretend he did not “own” it, but merely “charted” it. The problem: Antigua’s corrupt officials heard of Guryev’s insistence of non-ownership and decided to declare it as abandoned to pocket the proceeds.
Antigua won early litigation in U.S. federal and New York courts, with the latter even ordering Guryev’s daughter Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov to destroy all U.S. banking records they had clawed out through discovery. But now a Florida court is questioning why the Antigua records have been allowed to not be turned over having been categorized as “lost”.
On September 7, 2026, U.S. Magistrate Judge Marty Fulgueira Elfenbein of the Southern District of Florida allowed applicant Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov and her attorneys at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP to issue subpoenas to uncover the missing money trails and corporate records linked to an alleged international public corruption ring orchestrated by Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne. Guryeva claims that “Browne was strategically involved in the” illegal seizure and “subsequent sale of the Alfa Nero”—a $120 million superyacht with its onboard art.
Prime Minister Gaston Browne’s “administration was set to receive up to a 50% commission”—i.e., kickback—on this sale. The refusal to submit the paperwork from this transaction is also being litigated as contributing to “hiding criminal proceeds under” UAE law.
After the commencement of the Ukraine-Russian war, this yacht that had been docked in Antigua was stopped by Antiguan officials from leaving their harbor. They then passed legislation “to declare” Alfa Nero as “abandoned” to be able to sell it at an auction. It was thus sold for $40 million to the Yildirim Group, a Turkish construction and shipping company. This seems to have been a manipulated auction since this was lower than the highest bid of $67 million. In other words, the auction organizers favored a lower bid than the most profitable option for the state because they had an under-the-table deal with the lower bidder that kicked a bribe over to them.
The new Florida discovery request focuses on Gastone Browne III, the Prime Minister’s son and business proxy because he is especially reachable due to ties to south Florida. And Browne III is “likely to possess critical information about the 2024 sale of the Alfa Nero and associated kickback; his father’s business partners, ventures, and real estate holdings (including his extensive properties allegedly located in this District); and the disposition of the sale proceeds and kickback.” Northrop, the yacht broker who submitted the low winning bid, are also being asked to disclose their records.
One of the questions the discovery hopes to resolve is what happened to the $4 million left out of the total $40 million sale, from which only $36 million have been accounted for by Northrop in previous disclosures.
The bigger criminal problem is that in addition to this reported $40 million price, $6 million has been alleged to have been paid as a hidden bribe credited as a “consulting” fee to Prime Minister Browne, paid via his personal attorney. This payment was recorded in Northrop’s corporate accounts.
The U.S. Federal Court approved these new subpoenas to provide this evidence to four separate international proceedings. In Antigua and Barbuda, there is a pending constitutional challenge to the legislative act that was used to initially seize and auction the vessel as abandoned, when it merely could not be moved due to sanctions against its owner. In Russia, a civil lawsuit is seeking financial damages for the illegal expropriation of the yacht and its art. In the United Arab Emirates, a federal criminal complaint is under review over the hiding or transacting of illicit criminal proceeds. And a retaliatory defamation lawsuit was launched by Prime Minister Browne against the Boies Schiller Flexner legal team. Thus, the court has ruled Boies’ lawyers have a right to use federal discovery to prove the “defense of truth” against the Prime Minister’s claims.
The cost of pursuing these cases is likely to have cost millions in federal, state, constitutional, civil and global attorney’s fees on all sides. And this is only one of around twenty similar Russian oligarch yachts that are in litigation over these assets being frozen or forfeited.
While Anglo-American courts have been refusing to accept “straw owner” claims over these yachts, there was a single victory—that proved billionaire Alisher Asmanov had no legal control—in Germany over the priciest $600 million Dilbar superyacht.
There have been at least one other corruption accusations against forfeiture proceedings: US has argued the liquidation sale of the Amadea would see its $187 million in proceeds going to Ukraine, but instead it has been spent internally within the U.S. Marshals Service.
Russia’s spending 43% of its government budget on its military has contributed to around half-a-million Russian and over a hundred thousand Ukrainian war fatalities. Meanwhile, Russia’s civilian economy is starved, its bond market has continued to crash and debts have been ballooning. And the recent strikes on Russian oil refineries have prevented Russia from profiting from record-high oil prices.
What good have the yacht confiscations done? They did convince a single oligarch, Oleg Tinkov, to post a tirade on Instagram in 2022 that insisted that 90% of Russians oppose the Ukraine war, categorizing this invasion as “insane” and “crazy”. In retaliation, the Russian government then pressured to sell his stake in his Tinkoff Bank for a fraction of its value. And shortly thereafter he renounced his Russian citizenship. UK then removed Tinkov form its sanctions blacklist, freeing Tinkov to take possession of his yacht, which had been docked in Mexico, whose authorities refused to participate in Western seizure efforts.
In contrast, poor Guryev has remained silent about the war to retain a 48.4% stake in his fertilizer business, but has had to live in Moscow because he cannot legally enter not only his superyacht, but also his $400 million London mansion.
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