Ambassador Ronald Sanders told Alfa Nero yacht broker to write a public statement “to give the transaction the appearance of legitimacy,” according to an April 25 filing in U.S. federal court in Miami.
The revelation is the latest in attorney Martin De Luca’s discovery into Gaston Browne’s sale of the superyacht Alfa Nero.
“It would be advantageous in this matter if Northrop & Johnson, the broker for the sale of the Alfa Nero, would issue a public statement setting out its involvement in the sale, as well as the sum paid and to whom payment was made,” Sanders told the Northrop & Johnson CEO, Richard Higgins, in a March 20, 2025 email.
“The claims and allegations are designed to bring your company into disrepute,” Sanders said. The reality was different, as the Browne government was under withering legal and international attack at the time.
The Browne government and yacht broker had been going back and forth for a year to agree on making the sale look clean. “Higgins sent … a follow up with a proposed ‘Central Agency Agreement’ to list the yacht for sale on behalf of the Antiguan government, noting that Northrop’s involvement would help make the sale appear legitimate,” the April 25 legal memorandum says.
Northrop executives on April 4, 2024, discussed “edits to the Central Agency Agreement to avoid wording that the Antiguan government was paying a commission,” according the memo.
“Underscoring the extent to which the Antiguan government relied on Northrop’s reputation to give the transaction the appearance of legitimacy, Sir Ronald Sanders, Antigua’s Ambassador to the United States, wrote to Higgins … and others that ‘[ i ]t would be advantageous in this matter if Northrop. … [w]ould issue a public statement setting out its involvement in the sale.” That was after a year of back-and-forth.
The relevant section of the April 25, 2026 court memorandum appears below. The entire document is available here.
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