Financial transactions of Prime Minister Gaston Browne, Housing and Works Minister Maria Bird Browne, and others will be handed over to Alfa Nero attorney Martin De Luca per a subpoena to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The subpoena, publicly filed on October 20, is from the United States District Court for the southern district of New York. It commands the Federal Reserve Bank to “produce electronically stored information and either produce or permit the inspection of documents and tangible things specified below,” to De Luca and his firm, Boies Schiller Flexner.

Maria Bird-Browne, as government minister, is added to Alfa Nero group

The subpoena lists the following individuals whose transaction records shall be provided to De Luca. It includes Minister of Housing and Works Maria Bird-Browne among them:

The federal court issued similar subpoenas to The Clearing House Payments Company LLC, and to HSBC Bank USA, according to the court records.

There are 12 branches of the US Federal Reserve Bank, known as the Fed. The Fed handles transactions. Customer account ledgers, full transaction histories, and similar private records remain with the commercial banks or other institutions where the accounts are held. The Fed’s role is primarily settlement and processing of the interbank messages, not retail banking.

The Fed processes interbank payment data as a necessary part of operating the payment system and complies with valid court orders, but it does not maintain or freely access private individual account records the way a customer’s own bank does.