US Treasury Department already issued licences to interest bidders

The Government of Antigua and Barbuda has been successful in its discussions with its American counterpart concerning its application for a license to proceed with the unfettered sale of the Super Yacht, Alfa Nero.

This authorization was announced in the Parliament earlier this week by Prime Minister, Gaston Browne, which now opens up the way for the Port Authority of Antigua and Barbuda to proceed with a sale of the Alfa Nero by auction. 

It will be auctioned to anyone not on a sanctioned list and who has applied for, and received, a license from the US Treasury to engage in financial transactions related to the vessel. It is understood that several interested bidders have already received individual licenses from the US Treasury Department. 

Formal delisting needed 

Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States, Sir Ronald Sanders explains that while the license permits the Government of Antigua and Barbuda to proceed with the auction and to sell the vessel, other matters, such as the formal delisting of the Alfa Nero from the US Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list, are still being pursued.

The Ambassador went on to say “This entire process broke new ground; there were no rule books or patterns to follow.  In this sense, much has been achieved by a small state”.

Considered one of the largest private motor yachts in the world, measuring 82 metres in length, the Alfa Nero, with a value of US$81 million has been moored in Antigua’s Falmouth Habour for over a year.

It was recently seized by the government of Antigua and Barbuda. The 267-foot-long superyacht with an absentee owner believed to be Russian billionaire businessman, Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, who is among the Russian oligarchs who have been sanctioned internationally.

His assets have been ordered seized for allegedly financing Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine or managing finances in the interests of Putin’s regime.  The Russian oligarch has not sought to claim the Alfa Nero.