Gaston Browne crime family

Prime Minister Browne personally negotiated the sale of the Alfa Nero, which included a $6 million payoff for himself, sent to an Antigua law firm that represents Browne personally.

This is according to a court memorandum in the “Gaston Browne Corruption Discovery Application, filed over the weekend in Florida by attorney Martin De Luca and his colleagues for Yulia Guryeva‑Motlokhov, who owned Alfa Nero when Browne had it confiscated.

“Prime Minister Browne personally handled the negotiation over both the sale and its artificially low price,” according to the filing by the lawyers at Boies Schiller Flexner.

“Contemporaneous emails from [yacht brokerage company] Northrop’s lead broker to Northrop’s President on July 3, 2024 reported ‘an intense 4 days of negotiatiation with the prime minister and the client,” followed by an internal message describing the US $40 million price as ‘One hell of a deal. Best deal of the century. Ridiculous,” according to the corruption discovery application memo.

Browne claims his innocence and assures the public that everything is aboveboard and clean.

“A former senior Antiguan official who served directly under Browne also confirmed that the Prime Minister requested a specific law firm be paid a US $6 million consulting fee as part of the negotiations to sell Alfa Nero,” the document says.

A former Antigua and Barbuda official witnessed the “kickback,” according to the document. Mrs. Guryeva‑Motlokhov’s legal team “uncovered new evidence that Prime Minister Browne personally negotiated the sale of the Alfa Nero and profited from approving a sale price nearly two thirds below fair market value,” the court document says.

“A former senior Antiguan official who served directly under Browne … attested, based on personal knowledge, that Browne solicited and received a US $6 million payment in exchange for reducing the Vessel’s sale price.”

The former official “indicated that the kickback was ultimately paid to an Antiguan attorney – who is known to act as one of Browne’s personal lawyers – and disguised as ‘consulting fees.’“

According to the court document, Northrop & Johnson, the yacht broker, “circulated an Alfa Nero sales brochure to himself in January 2023, months before the Antiguan government created the legal framework it used to seize it; … three days after the Antiguan government enacted the enabling statute at Prime Minister Browne’s urging, the same broker conveyed a €55 million purchase offer to two members of the Prime Minister’s inner circle; … within days, Browne proposed a ‘Central Agency Agreement’ because partnering with Northrop would ‘give comfort’ and lend legitimacy to the Antiguan government’s sale; … the executed sale agreement conferred Antiguan citizenship and passports to the buyer and his family as part of the consideration for buying the Alfa Nero,” and more.

“These abnormalities surrounding the transaction align with the witness account by the former Antiguan official that Prime Minister Browne used his influence and control over the Antiguan government to artificially lower the Alfa Nero‘s sales price in exchange for a kickback,” according to the memorandum.

All documents are available for public inspection

The filing and its supporting documents became public over the weekend and are available on PACER, the U.S. federal judiciary’s official online system for public access to electronic court records.

PDFs of the documents have circulated since Sunday through the Antigua and Barbuda diaspora. MariaBirdBrowne.com received copies and verified them through PACER, Case number 1:25-cv-21129-KMM.

Mrs. Guryeva‑Motlokhov’s lawyers filed the memorandum of law because of new facts that merit specific new discovery in the ongoing case, which is costing Antigua and Barbuda taxpayers.

The Office of the Cabinet has denounced the filing as “desperate and misleading.”

Download copies of the April 25 Alfa Nero court documents here:

• Memorandum of Law, which contains the language quoted above;
• Text of Proposed Court Order;
• Affidavit Declaration of attorney Scott Curtis Nielson;
• Exhibit 1: ‘One hell of a deal’ email from yacht broker Richard Higgins;
• Exhibit 2: Email from Richard Higgins to himself;
• Exhibit 3: 2023 Alfa Nero sales brochure from before Browne changed the law to seize it;
• Exhibit 4: Email from Richard Higgins with Alfa Nero purchase offer;
• Exhibit 5: Email from Ambassador Ronald Sanders suggesting a coverup ‘public statement’;
• Exhibit 6: Emails between Richard Higgins and Yildirim legal counsel who expresses concern that Alfa Nero is being sold for ‘political’ reasons and not by court order;
• Exhibit 7: Email from Richard Higgins on Central Agency agreement;
• Exhibit 8: Northrop & Johnson Central Agency agreement;
• Exhibit 9: Emails regarding $4 million escrow, $1.8 million fee, and $450,000 fee;
• Exhibit 10: Sale and Purchase Agreement for Alfa Nero;
• Exhibit 11: Alfa Nero Valuation;
• Exhibit 12: Emails of Richard Higgins and others on Alfa Nero’s $105 million valuation;
• Exhibit 13: Emails, Richard Higgins on ‘4 days of negotiation’ with Browne;
• Exhibit 14: Maltese certificate of registration;
• Exhibit 15: Email, ‘The Government Is Paying A Commission‘;
• Exhibit 16: Article, Browne sacks envoy after $450,000 commission is revealed;
• Exhibit 17: Article, $40 million in Alfa Nero proceeds are missing from official digital records;
• Exhibit 18: Gaston A. Browne III’s @gmoney268 Instagram post;
• Exhibit 19: Gaston A. Browne III’s LinkedIn profile;
• Exhibit 20: State of Florida, Gaston A. Browne III traffic violation;
• Exhibit 21: MarineMax office locations;
• Exhibit 22: Northrop & Johnson CEO Crom Littlejohn profile;
• Exhibit 23: Crom Littlejohn profile;
• Exhibit 24: Alfa Nero sale listing;
• Exhibit 25: Odebrecht plea agreement.