russian oligarch superyacht

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Amadea, a superyacht, docked at the Port of Everett on Monday, April 29, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)

How did a Russian oligarch’s seized superyacht end up in Everett?

Worth more than $300 million, the Amadea could soon be up for sale. But first, it came to Everett on Monday.

• Monday, April 29, 2024 1:44pm
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Watch CBS News

Superyacht seized by U.S. from Russian billionaire arrives in San Diego Bay

June 27, 2022 / 3:40 PM EDT / CBS/AP

A $325 million superyacht seized by the United States from a sanctioned Russian oligarch arrived in San Diego Bay on Monday.

The 348-foot-long (106-meter-long) Amadea flew an American flag as it sailed past the retired aircraft carrier USS Midway and under the Coronado Bridge.

"After a transpacific journey of over 5,000 miles (8,047 kilometers), the Amadea has safely docked in a port within the United States, and will remain in the custody of the U.S. government, pending its anticipated forfeiture and sale," the Department of Justice said in a statement.

The FBI linked the Amadea to the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, and the vessel became a target of Task Force KleptoCapture, launched in March to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs to put pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine. The U.S. said Kerimov secretly bought the vessel last year through various shell companies.

But Justice Department  officials had been stymied  by a legal effort to contest the American seizure warrant and by a yacht crew that refused to sail for the U.S. American officials won a legal battle in Fiji to take the Cayman Islands-flagged superyacht earlier this month. 

The Amadea made a stop in Honolulu Harbor en route to the U.S. mainland. The Amadea boasts  luxury features  such as a helipad, mosaic-tiled pool, lobster tank and a pizza oven, nestled in a décor of "delicate marble and stones" and "precious woods and delicate silk fabrics," according to court documents.

"The successful seizure and transport of Amadea would not have been possible without extraordinary cooperation from our foreign partners in the global effort to enforce U.S. sanctions imposed in response to Russia's unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine," the Justice Department said.

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A 459-Foot Mystery in a Tuscan Port: Is It a Russian’s Superyacht?

As European authorities go after the luxury assets of oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin, a superyacht cloaked in secrecy has come under investigation.

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By Michael Forsythe Gaia Pianigiani and David D. Kirkpatrick

From Germany’s North Sea ports to the French Riviera, open season has been declared on superyachts. Across Europe, authorities are hunting down luxury vessels tied to Russian oligarchs in the effort to inflict pain on President Vladimir V. Putin’s allies.

In Marina di Carrara, a small Italian town on the Tuscan coast, one of the world’s biggest, newest and most expensive superyachts — called the Scheherazade — is under scrutiny by the Italian police. Almost as long as a U.S. guided-missile destroyer, it dominates the waterfront.

The yacht, estimated by the website SuperYachtFan to cost about $700 million, has two helicopter decks and is studded with satellite domes. Inside, photos supplied by a former crew member show, is a swimming pool with a retractable cover that converts to a dance floor. Then there’s the fully equipped gym and the gold-plated fixtures in the bathrooms.

In the rarefied world of the biggest superyachts ( only 14 that are at least 140 meters, or 459 feet long), the Scheherazade is alone in that no likely owner has been publicly identified. That has spurred speculation that it could be a Middle Eastern billionaire or a superconnected Russian — even Mr. Putin.

The ship’s captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, a British national, denied that Mr. Putin owned or had ever been on the yacht. “I have never seen him. I have never met him,” he said. He added, in a phone interview from the yacht, that its owner was not on any sanctions list. He did not rule out that the person could be Russian, but declined to say more about the owner’s identity, citing a “watertight nondisclosure agreement.”

Captain Bennett-Pearce said that Italian investigators had come aboard on Friday and examined some of the ship’s certification documents. “They are looking hard. They are looking at every aspect,” he said. “This isn’t the local coppers coming down, these are men in dark suits.” A person familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it, confirmed that the Italian financial police had opened an inquiry.

On Monday night, Captain Bennett-Pearce said he had “no choice” but to hand over documents revealing the owner’s identity to the Italian authorities. He said he would do so on Tuesday and had been told they would be handled with “confidentiality.”

“I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that this will clear the vessel of all negative rumors and speculations,” he wrote in a message to a New York Times reporter.

The mystery about the ship’s owner arose because — even for the hyper-confidential world of superyachting — there is an unusual degree of secrecy surrounding this vessel. Not only do contractors and crew members sign nondisclosure agreements, as on many superyachts, but the ship also has a cover to hide its name plate. And when it first arrived at the port, workers erected a tall metallic barrier on the pier to partly obscure the yacht from onlookers. Some locals remarked that they had never seen anything like it for other boats.

In his State of the Union address last week, President Biden announced a Justice Department task force to go after oligarchs close to Mr. Putin and facing sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sanctions have been imposed against hundreds of people, and the list keeps growing.

Last week, French authorities seized the yacht Amore Vero near Marseille as it was preparing to depart, claiming it was owned by a man on that list: Igor Sechin, the head of the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft. In Italy, police in Sanremo impounded Lena, a yacht belonging to Gennady Timchenko, a Putin friend who controls an oil exporting company. In nearby Imperia, police also impounded the Lady M, a yacht belonging to Alexei Mordashov, Russia’s richest man. The fate of the Dilbar, one of the world’s biggest yachts that the United States says belongs to the oligarch Alisher Usmanov, is unclear. It is in Hamburg, and German officials said the vessel could not leave without an export waiver, Bloomberg News reported .

Some of the biggest superyachts are owned by Russians who are not on the sanctions list. The world’s second-largest, Eclipse, which has a missile defense system and a mini submarine, is owned by Roman Abramovich, the billionaire who is selling his ownership stake in the British soccer club Chelsea. Andrey Melnichenko, a billionaire coal baron, owns Sailing Yacht A.

Determining the ownership of assets that the wealthy want to keep hidden is difficult, especially without a warrant, because they are often zealously guarded by private bankers and lawyers and tucked away in opaque shell companies in offshore secrecy havens. The Scheherazade is flagged in the Cayman Islands and its owner, Bielor Assets Ltd. , is registered in the Marshall Islands. The yacht’s management company, which Captain Bennett-Pearce says is also registered in the Cayman Islands, works from the ship and uses his rental villa in nearby Lucca as its address.

One trade website, which bills itself as “the global authority in superyachting,” claims that the vessel’s owner is “known to be a Middle Eastern billionaire.” The Scheherazade shares a name with the female storyteller in “The Arabian Nights,” and it made one brief foray into the Red Sea in September 2020, calling at the Egyptian port of Hurghada. But mostly it stays in Marina di Carrara, where it has been moored since last September.

Locals have their own theory about the ship’s ownership. Some have heard people onboard speaking Russian. And Scheherazade is also the title of a symphonic work by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

“Everybody calls it Putin’s yacht, but nobody knows whose it is,” said Ernesto Rossi, a retired clerk who was taking a walk along the marina’s promenade on Friday. “It’s a rumor that’s been going around for months.”

In Italy, the phrase “Putin’s yacht” has become shorthand for a mysterious and ultra-luxurious ship. It’s also a joke among the dozens of crew members, Captain Bennett-Pearce said. “I’ve heard the same rumors.”

Another, smaller vessel, the Graceful, has long been tied to the Russian president and is known as “Putin’s yacht.” It was tracked leaving Germany for the Russian port of Kaliningrad just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine. (U.S. government officials point out that Mr. Putin owns little outright; many of the luxurious homes or ships he uses are owned by oligarchs.)

Mr. Putin appears to have a penchant for big pleasure boats. During his time as Russia’s leader, he’s been photographed on yachts from Russia’s northern reaches to the Black Sea in the south. Last May, he and Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, took a cruise on a yacht at the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.

The Scheherazade’s builder, Lurssen Group, whose website promises customers “complete confidentiality,” declined to comment about its ownership. Until June 2020, when the completed ship left the pier in Bremen, Germany, it had the code name “Lightning.” The same company built the even bigger superyacht the Dilbar. A similar gigantic yacht, code-named “Luminance,” is now being built at Lurssen, scheduled to be completed next year.

“Of course, all orders and projects of the Lurssen Group and its subsidiaries are treated in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations,” said Oliver Grun, a company spokesman.

About 70 percent of the Scheherazade’s crew is Russian, Captain Bennett-Pearce said. And during each of the past two summers, it has sailed to Sochi, the last time in early July 2021, according to MarineTraffic, a top maritime analytics provider. The ship’s construction was managed by Imperial Yachts, a company in Monaco that, Reuters reported , manages the Amore Vero, Mr. Sechin’s seized yacht. Nick Flashman, who oversees construction of large vessels at Imperial Yachts, declined to comment.

One former crew member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nondisclosure agreement, said that shipmates called it “Putin’s yacht.” The person said the ship was manned by an international crew during “boss off” times; when it was “boss on,” the crew was replaced by an all-Russian staff. In the weeks before the Scheherazade’s 2020 trip to the Black Sea, the foreign crew was dismissed, the person said.

The former crew member supplied photos of rosters of both international and Russian crew members. The Times reached out, via social media, phone or email, to at least 17 of them. Few responded.

One of the Russians said only that he had worked on the Scheherazade, citing a nondisclosure agreement. Another person said it would be dangerous to talk. One man denied serving on the vessel; another said he hadn’t worked at sea in 25 years.

Captain Bennett-Pearce said “categorically there is not a European crew that comes on and a Russian crew that comes on.” Many of the ship’s senior officers are from Britain, New Zealand and Spain. Many international crew members were dismissed in 2020, replaced by Russians who didn’t demand the high salaries and benefits that their predecessors had, the captain said. “It came down to economics,” he said.

Given the antipathy that people outside of Russia have toward Mr. Putin, if the Russian president really were the owner or principal user of the yacht, keeping non-Russian senior crew members like him on staff would make no sense, Captain Bennett-Pearce said.

“If there’s a European crew onboard it’s the biggest smoke and mirror and the biggest risk I’ve ever heard of,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Dmitriy Khavin , Christoph Koettl , Julian E. Barnes , Jason Horowitz , Rebecca R. Ruiz and Eric Schmitt .

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the new task force announced by President Biden in his State of the Union address. He announced a Justice Department task force to pursue and seize the assets of oligarchs associated with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, not a joint task force with partners in Europe, which was previously announced.

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Michael Forsythe is a reporter on the investigations team. He was previously a correspondent in Hong Kong, covering the intersection of money and politics in China. He has also worked at Bloomberg News and is a United States Navy veteran. More about Michael Forsythe

Gaia Pianigiani is a reporter based in Italy for The New York Times.  More about Gaia Pianigiani

David D. Kirkpatrick is an investigative reporter based in New York and the author of “Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East.“ In 2020 he shared a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on covert Russian interference in other governments and as the Cairo bureau chief from 2011 to 2015 he led coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings. More about David D. Kirkpatrick

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U.S. seizes mega yacht owned by oligarch with close ties to Putin

PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain — The U.S. government seized a mega yacht in Spain owned by an oligarch with close ties to the Russian president on Monday, the first in the government’s sanctions enforcement initiative to “seize and freeze” giant boats and other pricey assets of Russian elites .

Spain’s Civil Guard and U.S. federal agents descended on the yacht at the Marina Real in the port of Palma de Mallorca, the capital of Spain’s Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. Associated Press reporters at the scene saw police going in and out of the boat on Monday morning.

The seizure was confirmed by two people familiar with the matter. The people could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity. A Spanish Civil Guard spokesman confirmed that officers from the Spanish police body and from the FBI were at the marina searching the vessel Monday morning and said further details would be released later.

A Civil Guard source told The Associated Press that the immobilized yacht is Tango, a 78-meter (254-feet) vessel that carries Cook Islands flag and that  Superyachtfan.com , a specialized website that tracks the world’s largest and most exclusive recreational boats, values at $120 million. The source was also not authorized to be named in media reports and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

The yacht is among the assets linked to Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire and close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who heads the Moscow-based Renova Group, a conglomerate encompassing metals, mining, tech and other assets, according to U.S. Treasury Department documents. All of Vekselberg’s assets in the U.S. are frozen and U.S. companies are forbidden from doing business with him and his entities.

The move is the first time the U.S. government has seized an oligarch’s yacht since Attorney General Merrick Garland and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen assembled a task force known as REPO — short for Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs — as an effort to enforce sanctions after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

Vekselberg has long had ties to the U.S. including a green card he once held and homes in New York and Connecticut. The Ukrainian-born businessman built his fortune by investing in the aluminum and oil industries in the post-Soviet era.

Vekselberg was also questioned in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and has worked closely with his American cousin, Andrew Intrater, who heads the New York investment management firm Columbus Nova.

Vekselberg and Intrater were thrust into the spotlight in the Mueller probe after the attorney for adult film star Stormy Daniels released a memo that claimed $500,000 in hush money was routed through Columbus Nova to a shell company set up by Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Columbus Nova denied that Vekselberg played any role in its payments to Cohen.

Vekselberg and Intrater met with Cohen at Trump Tower, one of several meetings between members of Trump’s inner circle and high-level Russians during the 2016 campaign and transition.

The 64-year-old mogul founded Renova Group more than three decades ago. The group holds the largest stake in United Co. Rusal, Russia’s biggest aluminum producer, among other investments.

Vekselberg was first sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018, and again in March of this year, shortly after the invasion of Ukraine began. Vekselberg has also been sanctioned by authorities in the United Kingdom.

The U.S. Justice Department has also launched a sanctions enforcement task force known as KleptoCapture , which also aims to enforce financial restrictions in the U.S. imposed on Russia and its billionaires, working with the FBI, Treasury and other federal agencies. That task force will also target financial institutions and entities that have helped oligarchs move money to dodge sanctions.

The White House has said that many allied countries, including German, the U.K, France, Italy and others are involved in trying to collect and share information against Russians targeted for sanctions. In his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden warned oligarch that the U.S. and European allies would “find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets.”

“We are coming for your ill-begotten gains,” he said.

Wednesday’s capture is not the first time Spanish authorities have been involved in the seizure of a Russian oligarch’s superyacht. Officials there said they had seized a vessel valued at over $140 million owned by the CEO of a state-owned defense conglomerate and a close Putin ally.

French authorities have also seized superyachts, including one believed to belong to Igor Sechin, a Putin ally who runs Russian oil giant Rosneft, which has been on the U.S. sanctions list since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

Italy has also seized several yachts and other assets.

Italian financial police moved quickly seizing the superyacht “Lena” belonging to Gennady Timchenko, an oligarch close to Putin, in the port of San Remo; the 65-meter (215-foot) “Lady M” owned by Alexei Mordashov in nearby Imperia, featuring six suites and estimated to be worth 65 million euros; as well as villas in Tuscany and Como, according to government officials.

Para reported from Madrid and Balsamo reported from Washington.

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16 superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs

Western sanctions over moscow's invasion of ukraine led to many luxury vessels being detained in europe.

March 23, 2022

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Which Superyachts Belong To Which Russian Oligarchs? An Investigation

Stormy seas ahead...

News just broke that Italy has joined Germany and France’s crusade against superyachts , with Russian billionaire businessman Alexey Alexandrovits Mordaschov’s €65m “Lady M Yacht” being seized in Imperia (Liguria) – a crescent-shaped region in northern Italy – over the weekend in compliance with the recent EU sanctions.

Previous to this, The Dilbar, a 512-foot, $600 million yacht owned by sanctioned Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, being kept in Germany, had work being done on it halted in the wake of the sanctions, and French authorities  seized a massive yacht they say is linked to Igor Sechin , a Russian billionaire who previously served as Russia’s deputy Prime Minister (and who is apparently known in Russian business circles as “Darth Vader”), and who is CEO of state oil company Rosneft.

In light of all these seizures (and amidst the rumours that The Flying Fox belongs to Jeff Bezos, when it really doesn’t), we thought we’d come up with a list of which superyachts belong to which Russian billionaire. Get ready to feast your eyes.

Quite the fleet now https://t.co/XnQAwLODzJ — Joanna Pegum💙 #StandWithUkraine. Wear a Mask (@londoner_007) March 5, 2022

Lady M Yacht

Owned By: Alexey Alexandrovits Mordaschov

Price: $96 million AUD, or $75 million AUD (depending on which sour c e you believe)

Russian billionaire Alexey Alexandrovits Mordaschov owns the “Lady M Yacht” which was recently reportedly seized in Northern Italy. A 56 year old Russian billionaire businessman, Mordaschov is Russia’s richest man (even, apparantly, richer than Putin) and he has investments ranging from London-listed travel giant Tui to the ‘personal bank’ of senior Russian officials (according to The Guardian ). He is also the main shareholder and chairman of Severstal, Russia’s biggest steel and mining company.

The Lady M Yacht is 65 metres long, fits 12 guests in 6 cabins, 14 crew in 7 cabins, was built in 2013 by Palmer Johnson and was designed by Nuvolari Lenard. The Lady M Yacht has a top speed of 28 knots and a cruising speed of 16 knots. It has an annual running cost of $4-5 million USD ($5-6 million AUD). Lady M Yacht has a Norwegian-built Windy Dubois SR52 tender, called Little M, and naturally, a helipad.

Lady M Yacht was probably named after Mordaschov’s second wife. Media advisor to Italy’s Prime Minister, Ferdinando Giugliano, has said Lady M Yacht is 65 million euros ($96,369,809 AUD). Superyacht Fan however says its price is $55 million USD ( 37,103,056 euros), which equates to $75,019,285 AUD.

Lurssen Yacht Nord

Price: US$ 500 million (according to Super Yacht Fan)

This bad boy, built in 2020 (and delivered in 2021) also belongs to Russia’s richest man – Alexey Alexandrovits Mordaschov. The 141.6-metre Nord was designed with the intent to “cause strong emotions in every observer” via its sheer size and stunning design (by Italian design studio Nuvolari-Lenard, who gave Nord a bow design never before seen on a yacht. The Nord has an exhaust after treatment system, which hugely reduces nitrogen (by 97%) and noise.

Owned by: Kremlin-aligned Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov

Price: $648 million (reportedly)

The Dilbar, the world’s biggest yacht measured by interior volume, was launched in 2016 at an estimated US $648 million ($882,922,680 AUD). Five years later, its owner, Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, sent the vessel to a German shipyard for a retrofit reportedly costing another couple of hundred million dollars.

Forbes  recently reported that the Dilbar had been seized in Germany, working off the information of three sources. They since issued a correction stating that the Ministry for Economy and Innovation in Hamburg says the authorities have not seized the Dilbar, but rather work on the ship has been halted.

“Three sources had told  Forbes  it had been seized, but a representative for Usmanov cited the statement from the ministry in Hamburg to confirm that it had not. In its statement, the ministry elaborated that the German federal customs agency is the ‘responsible enforcement authority’ and would have to issue an export waiver for the yacht to leave, and that ‘no yacht leaves port that is not allowed to do so.’”

The Dilbar is 156 metres long, houses 36 guests in 18 cabins (and 84 crew in 40 cabins), was built by Lurssen and was designed by Espen Oeino. The Dilbar has a top speed of 22.5 knots and an annual running cost of $50-80 million USD.

Owned by: Igor Sechin

Price: $120 million USD

Built in 2013, with a length of 86 metres and the capacity to house 14 guests and 28 crew, Amore Vero was built by Oceanco and designed by Lobanov. It has a top speed of 18 knots and and annual running cost of $12 million.

According to the BBC , Amore Vero was seized by French authorities last Wednesday, when customs officers noticed that it was “taking steps to sail off urgently.”

“It arrived in in the Mediterranean port of La Ciotat in January and had been due to stay there while being repaired until 1 April,” the BBC reports.

“It has also been reported that yachts belonging to five other Russian billionaires were heading to the Maldives, regarded as a safe home because it does not have an extradition treaty with the US,” ( BBC ).

Owned by: Gennady Nikolayevich Timchenko

Price: €50 million euros ($74 million AUD)

Lena is owned by the founder of a Russia-based private investment group and close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin,  Gennady Nikolayevich Timchenko. Media advisor to Italy’s Prime Minister, Ferdinando Giugliano, has said Lena was also recently frozen by authorities.

Owned by: Roman Abramovich

Price: £430 million ($770 million AUD)

The owner of Chelsea football club ( Abramovich is now trying to sell his shares Chelsea FC) Roman Abramovich also owns a superyacht called My Solaris. My Solaris is 137 metres long.

My Solaris  has a power and energy management system that is the most powerful of its kind ever installed on a yacht, according to  Superyacht Times . Roman Abramovich also owns a superyacht called the  Eclipse,  worth $700 million USD ($955 million AUD), Superyacht Times reports. He is reportedly not been sanctioned as of yet in the US or UK (but is still selling Chelsea in case he is).

Owned by: Vladimir Potanin

Price: Unknown

Vladimir Potanin is one of the richest men in Russia. He owns the  Nirvana,  a superyacht that can fit 12 guests and 18 crew, superyachtfan.com states.

Potanin also owns a yacht called Barbara. Potanin owns more than a third of Norilsk Nickel, a mining company, and has well as stakes in a pharmaceutical company and a ski resort.

Fortune reports: “On Wednesday [last week] he resigned as a trustee of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, according to the museum. Nirvana   is apparently currently in the Maldives, a country that, probably not coincidentally doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S.

Ocean Victory

Owned by: Viktor Rashnikov

Price: $300 million ( $408 million AUD)

Russian minerals and metals magnate Viktor Rashnikov owns ‘ Ocean Victory, ‘ a superyacht with an outlandish six pools, an underwater observation room, an internal helicopter hangar, and a helideck. Old mate has a net worth of nearly $10 billion and is No. 195 on  Forbes’  2021 billionaires list .

Owned by: Oleg Deripaska

Price: $65 million USD ($88 million AUD)

Oleg Deripaska, who has a net worth of almost $3 billion, is the founder of the Russian aluminium group Rusal. He owns Clio , which has a crew of 21. It comes with a boat called Sputnik, with a crew of 26. According to Fortune, Deripaska   has called for an end to the war in Ukraine. According to Reuters , Clio was docked in the Maldives as of last Thursday.

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National Security

A russian oligarch's $90 million yacht is seized as part of u.s. sanctions.

A Civil Guard stands by the yacht called Tango in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on Monday. U.S. federal agents and Spain's Civil Guard are searching the yacht owned by a Russian oligarch. Francisco Ubilla/AP hide caption

A Civil Guard stands by the yacht called Tango in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on Monday. U.S. federal agents and Spain's Civil Guard are searching the yacht owned by a Russian oligarch.

Spanish officials have seized a Russian-owned luxury yacht in Mallorca at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. It was the first coordinated seizure under the department's Task Force KleptoCapture, which is tasked with enforcing the sweeping sanctions placed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

The $90 million 255-foot yacht, named Tango, is owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who heads the Renova Group, a Russian conglomerate with interests in metallurgy, machinery, energy, telecommunications as well as others.

"Today marks our taskforce's first seizure of an asset belonging to a sanctioned individual with close ties to the Russian regime. It will not be the last," said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement. "Together, with our international partners, we will do everything possible to hold accountable any individual whose criminal acts enable the Russian government to continue its unjust war."

The seizure was performed by Spanish Guardia Civil officers with assistance from the FBI.

U.S. officials allege that the Tango has been owned continuously by Vekselberg since 2011 and that he used shell companies to " obfuscate his interest in the Tango ," the Justice Department said in a press release.

The release cites alleges bank fraud and money laundering as justification for the seizure, highlighting U.S. bank payments for support and maintenance of the vessel — including a December 2020 stay at a luxury water villa resort in the Maldives.

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The US wants a Russian oligarch's seized $300 million superyacht that features an infinity pool, a movie theater, and a helicopter landing pad

• The US has filed a civil forfeiture case against a $300 million superyacht it alleges is owned by a Russian oligarch.
• The 348-foot luxury ship Amadea was bought by billionaire Suleiman Kerimov in September 2021, years after he was sanctioned, US officials say.
• Eduard Khudainatov, another Russian oligarch, filed legal papers saying he owns the superyacht instead.  

Federal attorneys want to have a Russian oligarch's $300 million superyacht forfeited to the US, over a year after it was first seized by Fiji authorities after the war with Ukraine broke out.

US Attorney Damian Williams on Monday filed a civil forfeiture complaint against the Amadea, an extravagant 348-foot-long luxury ship that US officials allege is owned by billionaire Suleiman Kerimov.

The Amadea features a helicopter pad on its foredeck, a mosaic-lined swimming pool at the rear, fire pits, and an indoor movie theater, according to CharterWorld Luxury Yacht Charters .

Kerimov was initially sanctioned in 2018 over his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Williams wrote in court filings. Yet in 2021, he worked out a deal to buy the yacht through a series of corporate entities to obscure who owned the vessel and violated sanctions by having more than $1 million in maintenance work done on the ship, the court documents allege.

The yacht was initially seized by Fiji authorities after it raced into the Pacific Ocean when the war with Ukraine broke out, according to a BBC report published in November 2022.

US prosecutor Andrew Adams told the BBC that authorities noticed the vessel "scrambling out of waters where we would normally be able to seize it" just weeks after Russian forces invaded Ukraine.

"Essentially, the boat tried to go dark," Adams said in an interview.

The BBC reported that US officials believed the ship was going to race for Vladivostok, a Russian port near North Korea, when it was seized in Fiji.

The ship was then seized by the US Department of Justice and moved to California where it remains docked.

However, lawyers for a separate Russian oligarch claiming to own the yacht — Eduard Khudainatov, who hasn't been sanctioned — filed legal papers in a Fiji court last year , seeking to have the boat turned back over.

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Khudainatov's lawyers told Bloomberg that they've filed a lawsuit in San Diego, California as well seeking to get the superyacht back. 

A representative for Khudainatov's lawyers referred Insider to the filing. 

The legal wrangling surrounding the Amadea underscores the challenges over determining the actual owner of a superyacht due to a complex ownership structure that could include shell companies, Insider reported in March last year.

It also prolongs the process of determining the next steps surrounding the yachts — which are sitting around and racking up millions of dollars in annual maintenance fees.

In April last year, the US Justice Department estimated the yacht's running costs mount up to between $25 million and $30 million a year. 

The US complaint against the Amadea on Monday marks the latest development over the seizure of Russian assets after Moscow invaded Ukraine. 

Forbes estimated in April that Western countries have frozen or seized at least 15 superyachts linked to sanctioned Russian billionaires. 

Seized yachts include the $120 million Alfa Nero that has been docked in the small Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda since February last year and the $735 million Dilbar , which has been impounded in Germany.

Governments that have seized Russian property are seeking to take over their ownership — and this would require authorities to prove that the assets were part of a crime. They are considering using the interest generated from frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine .

October 24, 12.06 a.m. EDT: This story has been updated to include details of the Fiji complaint and adds background information on seized Russian yachts.

Watch: The rise and fall of Russian oligarchs

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