Superyacht Alfa Nero, which has been moored in Antigua’s Falmouth Harbor for more than a year

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Any proceeds from the sale of Alfa Nero; a superyacht owned by Russian businessman Andrey Guryev will remain with the government of Antigua and Barbuda.

The yacht which has been moored in Antigua’s Falmouth Harbour since the invasion of Russia by Ukraine will be placed on auction in the coming days. The government has said that it was giving the owner ten days to claim the vessel, after which it will be sold. That was last week.

And now Chief of Staff in the Office of the Prime Minister Lionel Max Hurst told reporters at the weekly Cabinet press conference on Thursday that the government is currently putting everything in place to proceed with the sale of the vessel.

“I can’t say precisely when it will happen but we are crossing all of our Ts and dotting all of our Is because, once the vessel has been sold, we believe that there might be an attempt on the part of the owner to seek compensation in the Antigua and Barbuda courts. So, we want to ensure that we obey the law to the letter, both the spirit and the purpose of the law,” the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Lionel Hurst said.

Hurst said the Yacht, owned by Andrey Guryev; a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has racked up some cost by just remaining in the harbor.

“We know that there are some costs associated with it remaining in the harbor like that and we are afraid that in the summer months when we get hurricanes and … if it’s not gone by then, that it could be blown anywhere and sink any place making shipping very dangerous, so we want to get this done as soon as possible, but I can’t give a precise timeline. I can assure you, though, that it will happen within a matter of months,” Hurst said.