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The U.S. Is Paying $600,000 a Month to Maintain This Seized Russian Superyacht

The government wants to sell the $325 million vessel to end the "excessive" upkeep., rachel cormack.

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It turns out that not everyone wants a multimillion-dollar megayacht.

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The hefty monthly sum includes $360,000 for crew wages, $75,000 for fuel, and $165,000 for maintenance, waste removal, food, and other expenses, according to court papers filed Friday in New York.

“The carrying costs for the Amadea are far from modest, and there is good cause to spare the government and the public from bearing these costs,” the filing states.

It’s not just the monthly payments piling up, either. The U.S. Justice Department said it is paying a $1.7 million annual insurance bill this month. It will also need to fork out $5.6 million to send Amadea into dry dock for repairs in March. (The monthly payments will be suspended during this time.)

The court will first need to determine who owns Amadea before it decides the vessel’s fate. Millemarin Investments is the legal owner on paper, but the U.S. alleges that Kerimov is the beneficial owner and exercises control. To further complicate things, Eduard Khudainatov, the former head of Russian oil producer Rosneft, is claiming that he is the rightful owner. He hasn’t been sanctioned by the U.S. and wants Amadea back.

Lawyers for Khudainatov said that their client would reimburse the U.S. for the cost of maintaining the yacht if it is returned to him. (The country has spent about $20 million on Amadea to date.) The lawyers added that the seizure was “unlawful.”

Rachel Cormack is a digital editor at Robb Report. She cut her teeth writing for HuffPost, Concrete Playground, and several other online publications in Australia, before moving to New York at the…

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Here are the superyachts seized from Russian oligarchs

As part of an international pressure campaign on Russia, authorities from around the world have seized more than a half-dozen superyachts belonging to billionaire oligarchs allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The yacht seizures since the Feb. 24 invasion are "just the beginning," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in March, as an international task force worked to identify further assets that can be seized or frozen.

“The Justice Department will be relentless in our efforts to hold accountable those who facilitate the death and destruction we are witnessing in Ukraine,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said of the ongoing efforts in May.

Here are the superyachts government officials have seized since Russia invaded Ukraine last month.

The Justice Department announced May 5 that the Fijian government had seized billionaire oligarch Suleiman Kerimov 's 348-foot yacht Amadea. The vessel, which is valued at more than $300 million , arrived in Fiji last month. Kerimov, who's worth an estimated $14 billion and has ties to the Russian government, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department over alleged money laundering in 2018.

Special features on the sprawling yacht include a helipad, infinity pool, a jacuzzi and multiple bars, according to a report in Boat International . It can accommodate 16 overnight guests in addition to 36 crew members, the report said.

In April, Spanish law-enforcement officials seized a 255-foot yacht called the Tango, which Justice Department says is owned by oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg is an aluminum magnate who the Treasury Department says has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Tango is worth an estimated $90 million, prosecutors said , and Vekselberg allegedly purchased it through shell companies. The 11-year-old yacht has seven staterooms and reportedly includes amenities such as a pool, gym and beauty salon .

Authorities in Italy seized a 215-foot superyacht called the Lady M this month. It's owned by Alexei Mordashov, Russia's richest businessman, and it’s estimated to be worth $27 million . The vessel, which requires a crew of 14, has six guest cabins , a pool and a gym.

But it pales in comparison to another of Mordashov's yachts, the $500 million Nord . The 464-foot vessel, which has two helipads and a waterfall and can accommodate 36 guests, was anchored this month in the Seychelles, where the U.S. and European Union sanctions don’t apply.

Italian officials also seized the 132-foot superyacht Lena, owned by the energy magnate Gennady Timchenko. Estimated to be worth $8 million, it has five cabins and can accommodate 10 guests.

SY A — short for Sailing Yacht A — is one of the world's largest superyachts. Valued at over $440 million, the 469-foot vessel, owned by the fertilizer magnate Andrey Melnichenko, has eight decks, multiple elevators, an underwater observation area and the world's tallest masts . It was seized in the Italian port of Trieste.

Authorities in Spain seized Sergei Chemezov's Valerie, a 279-foot superyacht that had been moored in Barcelona. Chemezov , a former KGB officer, heads the state conglomerate Rostec. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez touted the seizure on La Sexta television. “We are talking about a yacht that we estimate is worth $140 million,” Sanchez said.

Officials in France announced this month that they had seized the 289-foot Amore Vero, which was undergoing repairs in a shipyard near Marseille. When they arrived, authorities said, they found the crew preparing for an urgent departure, even though the repair work was scheduled to last through April. The $120 million boat, which has seven cabins , is linked to Igor Sechin, described by the U.S. Treasury Department as a close ally of Putin's.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

Watch CBS News

Court in Fiji approves U.S. warrant to seize Russian-owned mega-yacht

By Graham Kates

May 3, 2022 / 9:32 AM EDT / CBS News

Fiji's High Court on Tuesday ruled that a massive Russian-owned yacht can be seized by U.S. authorities.

American and Fijian officials claim the Cayman Islands-flagged Amadea is the property of Suleiman Kerimov, an oligarch who built his fortune on gold mining. Kerimov was sanctioned in March by the United States, United Kingdom and European Union in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine . 

But an attorney who represents Millemarin Investments, the company the $325 million ship is registered to, said it's not owned by Kerimov. Instead, he argued in court that corporate paperwork traces the ship's ownership to Eduard Khudainatov, a former executive at Russia's state-owned Rosneft oil company who has not been sanctioned. 

Kerimov and Khudainatov could not be reached for comment. The company intends to appeal Tuesday's decision.

The Amadea berthed in Fiji on April 13, according to local reports and the maritime analytics website Marine Traffic. Soon after, a federal judge approved a warrant for the ship to be seized and on April 19, Fiji's top prosecutor moved to prevent the ship from leaving.

• Russian oligarchs moving yachts as U.S. tracks down assets

The Department of Justice could not immediately be reached for comment. 

On April 4, the agency announced that Spanish authorities had assisted it in seizing another Russian yacht, the $90 million Tango, which was owned by Viktor Vekselberg, the owner of the Russian conglomerate Renova Group.

Legislation passed by the House of Representatives on April 27 would allow the U.S. to sell the yacht and other properties worth more than $2 million seized from Russian oligarchs in order to fund the Ukrainian war effort. President Joe Biden supports the bill, which has yet to pass the Senate.

"We're going to seize their yachts, their luxury homes and other ill-begotten gains," Biden said on April 28 at the White House.

Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at [email protected] or [email protected]

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Civil Forfeiture Complaint Filed Against $300 Million Superyacht Amadea Involved In Sanctions Evasion

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Michael Khoo and David Lim, Co-Directors of Task Force KleptoCapture, announced today the filing of a civil forfeiture complaint against the Motor Yacht Amadea , a 348-foot luxury vessel reportedly worth over $300 million.  The Complaint alleges that the superyacht, which is beneficially owned by Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, was improved and maintained in violation of applicable sanctions against Kerimov and those acting on his behalf.  The Complaint alleges that the Amadea is forfeitable based on violations of U.S. law, including International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”), and money laundering violations.  

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “The filing of this complaint exemplifies that the United States takes sanction evasion seriously and will use all tools at its disposal to ensure that sanctioned individuals are held accountable for their crimes.  I thank our partners with Task Force KleptoCapture as well as the dedicated prosecutors of this office for their important work holding Russian oligarchs responsible and aiding our allies in Ukraine.”

Co-Director of Task Force KleptoCapture Michael Khoo said: “The United States brings this action today after a careful and painstaking effort to develop the necessary evidence showing Suleiman Kerimov’s clear interest in the Amadea and the repeated misuse of the U.S. financial system to support and maintain the yacht for his benefit.  Getting to this point required extensive cooperation across the U.S. government and with foreign partners.  It underscores our resolve to undertake challenging, cross-border investigations and to send a message to Russian oligarchs and their enablers: if you flout the rule of law, you can expect to pay real and meaningful consequences.”

According to the allegations in the Complaint filed in Manhattan federal court today: [1]

On April 6, 2018, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) designated Kerimov as a Specially Designated National (“SDN”) under IEEPA in connection with its finding that the actions of the Government of the Russian Federation in Ukraine constituted an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.  In imposing sanctions, OFAC determined that Kerimov benefited from the regime of Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and played a key role in advancing Russia’s malign activities.  As alleged, Kerimov never sought a license from OFAC authorizing any transactions including any transactions in connection with expenditures related to the yacht.  On or about September 30, 2022, OFAC redesignated Kerimov as an SDN.

In September 2021, following Kerimov’s designation by OFAC, Kerimov arranged to purchase the superyacht Amadea , contracting with the seller to receive use rights to the vessel even before Kerimov had completed payment or obtained title to the vessel.  Kerimov gained beneficial ownership of the vessel in or about September 2021 through a series of transfers between shell companies conducted in a manner designed to conceal his ownership of the yacht.  Between in or about July 2021 and in or about September 2021, beneficial ownership of the Amadea was transferred from the former title holder, Nereo Management Ltd., to Millemarin Investments Ltd., which was incorporated approximately 30 days before the sale.  Ownership of the Amadea was then transferred to Errigal Marine Limited, another newly incorporated company, which was used to obscure Kerimov’s beneficial ownership of the Amadea .  Beginning in October 2021 through the date the yacht was seized by Fijian authorities in April 2022, Kerimov and/or his family members took multiple trips aboard the Amadea , planned extensive renovations to the Amadea , made long-term plans for the Amadea ’s travel schedule, and assumed all liability and responsibility for the Amadea ’s upkeep and running costs.

During that time period, individuals and/or entities acting on Kerimov’s behalf accrued U.S. dollar-denominated costs necessary for the upkeep of the Amadea and sent or caused to be sent through the U.S. financial systems payments in satisfaction of those expenses, in violation of applicable sanctions.

The Amadea is currently under the control of the U.S. Government in San Diego, California, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which was enforced by a court order issued by the Republic of Fiji following a request from the United States.  The United States is deeply grateful to the Fijian police and prosecutors whose perseverance and dedication to the rule of law made this action possible.

*                *                *

Mr. Williams praised the outstanding investigative work of the FBI New York Field Office’s Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force.  Mr. Williams further thanked the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, as well as the U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Embassy Suva, and the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service, for their assistance and cooperation in this investigation.

On March 2, 2022, the Attorney General announced the launch of Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency law enforcement task force dedicated to enforcing the sweeping sanctions, export restrictions, and economic countermeasures that the United States has imposed, along with allies and partners, in response to Russia’s unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine.  The Task Force will leverage all the Department’s tools and authorities against efforts to evade or undermine the economic actions taken by the U.S. government in response to Russian military aggression.

This case is being handled by the Office’s Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit in partnership with the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section and the National Security Division.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Mortazavi and Trial Attorneys Joshua L. Sohn and Andrew D. Beaty are handling the investigation.

A civil forfeiture complaint is merely an allegation that money or property was involved in or represents the proceeds of a crime.  These allegations are not proven until a court awards a judgment in favor of the United States.

[1] As the introductory phrase signifies, the Complaint and the description of the Complaint set forth herein constitute only allegations, and every fact described should be treated as an allegation.

Nicholas Biase (212) 637-2600

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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.

Related stories

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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On the morning of March 29 2022, Captain Guy Booth was working aboard Phi, a 192ft aquamarine superyacht moored in London’s Canary Wharf, when he heard a commotion below. Down on the pier a car had pulled up and Grant Shapps, then the UK’s transport secretary, emerged from the vehicle, followed by a retinue of aides.

“The first thing we saw was his entourage, several men and women carrying clipboards and make-up and hairbrushes,” says Booth. 

Shapps and his team then began to shoot a video for the social media network TikTok, where the government minister announced that Phi — built in 2021 by the famed Dutch luxury shipbuilder Royal Huisman and worth an estimated £38mn — “belongs to a Russian oligarch, friends of Putin”.

Booth watched in amazement as several television crews who’d been tipped off about the news arrived at the scene. “Shapps was positioning himself like a big game hunter, checking his best angle,” says Booth. “They took several takes.”

Next, a black cab arrived and three officers from the UK’s National Crime Agency got out. They climbed aboard and handed Booth a brown envelope. Inside was a government order: the boat he captained was now detained for being “owned by persons connected with Russia”.

Video description

A video shot by Grant Shapps in Canary Wharf, which shows the yacht Phi after the order to detain it in London

Today, Phi is still moored in the same spot in Canary Wharf outside an Indian restaurant, and with a small skeleton crew aboard. Each day, Booth, along with two engineers, a chief officer, a crew cook and two deck hands wake up on board and dutifully service the vessel.

Its once feted “infinite wine cellar” and seven-metre swimming pool lie unused. A lonely sun lounger sits out on deck, and the yacht’s Maltese maritime flag droops. Pink paint has been applied to its roof to protect it from the risk of dust from nearby building sites. 

Paul Dickie, a lawyer at Jaffa & Co who has represented Phi, claims the boat has been targeted by squatters. A notice on its side warns any would-be trespassers that they will be prosecuted “to the full extent of the law”.

For western nations, the yachts’ fate is a high-stakes test of the effectiveness of sanctions. For the lawyers who work for the owners, these seizures are acts of modern piracy

Phi’s owner, a Russian businessman called Sergei Naumenko, has repeatedly denied any connection to Vladimir Putin or the Russian state, and has twice unsuccessfully appealed to the English courts to have the yacht released. 

In May 2023 an English High Court judge said Shapps’s TikTok video claims that the owner had “close connections to Putin” were “excusable political hyperbole”. The Court of Appeal in March this year said it was “troubled” by Shapps’s “incorrect” statements. Both courts, however, upheld the UK detention order for the vessel.

After Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted western governments to unleash an avalanche of economic sanctions against Russian oligarchs, there are now multiple superyachts like Phi trapped in ports around the world. Several are stuck in seemingly never-ending legal quagmires, with vastly expensive lawyers hired by often opaque offshore owners battling for their release.

Although tens of billions of dollars of Russian-owned luxury assets, including mansions, luxury cars and private jets, have been frozen, it was the symbolism of the seizure of the oligarch superyachts — vast, floating Versailles palaces often worth hundreds of millions of dollars — that captured the public’s imagination. Anti-corruption campaigners hoped at the time that these vessels would be auctioned off and the proceeds could be donated to Ukraine.

Yet more than two years on from the start of the war, the future of these superyachts remains unresolved. Once prized trophies in the west’s co-ordinated response to Russia’s aggression, some have racked up vast maintenance costs for taxpayers, had their angry crews turn fire hoses and drones on snooping reporters, and been the target of sabotage plots by anti-war activists. 

For western governments, resolving the fate of these superyachts will be a high-stakes test of the effectiveness of economic sanctions. For lawyers working for the oligarchs who own them, the seizures are acts of modern piracy.

Perhaps no single vessel exemplifies the array of headaches that seized superyachts have caused western governments more than the Amadea — a $300mn, 348ft boat detained by the US authorities in Fiji in 2022.

Such is its gaudy opulence that the Amadea could be a pastiche of an oligarch’s fantasies. According to a 2021 profile in Boat International, it boasts a Pleyel piano with 24-carat gold pedals, a swimming pool that converts into a stage for DJs, hand-painted Michelangelo clouds on the dining-room ceiling, a lobster tank and a helipad. 

When the US Department of Justice seized the Amadea, it claimed that it was owned by the sanctioned Dagestan-born gold magnate Suleiman Kerimov. The DoJ said he was “part of a group of Russian oligarchs who profit from the Russian government through corruption and its malign activity around the globe”.

Deputy US attorney-general Lisa Monaco announced at the time that the seizure “should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide”. Not long after Amadea was seized in Fiji, she told the Aspen Security Forum that investigators had even discovered an “alleged Fabergé egg” aboard. It was later found to be an imitation.

The Amadea was then moved by the US authorities from Fiji to San Diego, where it is currently moored. The US government last October brought a civil forfeiture case against the superyacht based on its claim that it was owned by Kerimov. 

We have 60,000 litres of diesel on board. If there are problems with fire detection, that could be very dangerous. You can’t get a fire engine in here’ Captain Guy Booth

During the time the Amadea has been stuck in San Diego, it has racked up maintenance bills of $740,000 a month, or almost $9mn a year, to be paid by the US government. Because of this, the Department of Justice moved to try to sell the boat, arguing that the costs it was incurring were “excessive”. 

Superyachts require constant maintenance and upkeep to keep their seaworthiness, let alone their value. Crew salaries and vast mooring fees must be paid. Hulls must be scraped, engines must be cleaned.

“The water here is brackish, half freshwater and half seawater, so things grow in it,” Booth says about Phi. “We are constantly having to remove biological marine growth from the filters. The teak decks require constant daily attention.”

Sabotage is also a risk. Lady Anastasia, a yacht seized in Mallorca and owned by the CEO of the Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport Alexander Mikheev, in February 2022 was almost destroyed by a Ukrainian mechanic working on the boat who tried to intentionally sink it.

Some boats have simply disappeared. In the summer of 2022, two yachts owned by Dmitry Mazepin, another sanctioned Russian billionaire, vanished from the Sardinian port of Olbia. An investigation by Italy’s financial police, which had seized both yachts shortly after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, found that one had made a stopover in Tunisia before vanishing, while the other was spotted sailing towards Turkey. In response, Italy has hit Mazepin with fines, which remain unpaid.

Booth says he believes Phi has suffered significant damage, as well as lost charter earnings, as a result of being stuck in Canary Wharf. “I am not at liberty to discuss the exact figure,” he says, “but it is huge. We are talking tens of millions of pounds.” 

Because of the freezing order, Phi’s Dutch manufacturer is unable to perform warranty work on the yacht. One of many issues, Booth says, is that he has been unable to fix faulty fire protection systems.

“We have 60,000 litres of diesel on board. If there are problems with the fire detection systems, that could be very dangerous. Exceptionally dangerous. You could have an ecological disaster in central London. You can’t get a fire engine in here.”

In Phi’s case, the costs are all borne by its Russian owner, who — unlike many other owners of frozen yachts — is not sanctioned and has not been proven to have any meaningful connection to the Russian state. He will be able to get this money back from the UK government only if the restriction order is overturned and he can then win a successful damages claim.

For other superyachts, the burden of paying for upkeep falls on the countries where they are being held. Lady M, a yacht owned by the sanctioned Russian steel and mining magnate Alexei Mordashov, has been blocked from leaving the Italian port of Imperia as one of seven yachts belonging to Russian oligarchs in the country.

Another, Sailing Yacht A, designed by Philippe Starck and, at 468ft long, one of the largest private sail-assisted motor yachts in the world, is currently impounded in the port of Trieste. Alleged by the Italian state to be owned by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Andrey Melnichenko, the boat is estimated to have cost the Italian taxpayer more than €18mn in upkeep, according to the local newspaper Il Piccolo. Lawyers for Melnichenko have said he does not personally own the yacht, and instead it is controlled by a trust that has no connection to him.

Costs aside, seizing a superyacht is simple enough, provided it is in the right place. At the time of the invasion, the only way for sanctioned Russian oligarchs to protect their yachts was to be lucky or shrewd enough to not have them in territories or waters where they could be captured. In March 2022, two superyachts belonging to Roman Abramovich, one of them featuring an onboard missile defence system and anti-paparazzi “laser shield”, sailed away from Europe towards Turkey and remain free to this day.

But in an industry where it is common to own vessels through cascades of offshore companies and anonymous trusts, a far trickier task for investigators can be to prove in court who really owns a superyacht once it has been detained.

Legal tussles over the ownership of government-seized assets are common. The difference with the superyachts is the owners’ legal resources, the value of the assets and the cost to the taxpayer

In the case of the Amadea, the US government has been battling in court to prove that Kerimov is its true owner before it can be allowed to sell the yacht and stop paying the vast costs of its upkeep.

The Department of Justice appeared to have strong evidence to back up its claims, including records showing that Kerimov’s family spent large amounts of time on the Amadea, and that his children had requested structural modifications to the superyacht.

However, Kerimov denied ownership. Instead, a different wealthy Russian, Eduard Khudainatov, a former chief executive of the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft, stepped forward to claim that he, in fact, was the true owner of the Amadea and the seizure was unlawful.

“When you need records from overseas, when you are dealing with shell companies in secrecy jurisdictions, or people are hiding behind nominee owners, it’s going to take a long time,” says Stefan Cassella, a former federal prosecutor who served 30 years in the US Department of Justice specialising in asset forfeiture.

Cassella says these sorts of legal tussles over who owns an asset that has been seized by a government are common. The difference in the case of oligarch-owned superyachts is the legal resources available to the owners fighting the seizures, the size and value of the assets, and the cost to the taxpayer of keeping them afloat.

“We litigate this all the time,” Cassella tells me. “Say a drug agent sees a dealer dealing from a Mercedes car and they want to seize it. He claims it’s not his car, that his mother or sister owns it. We then need to litigate with that person to see if they are really the owner. Who pays the insurance? Who brought it in to get oil changed? Whose garage is it sitting in? This is the same, just on a much larger scale.”

The US responded in a court filing to Khudainatov’s claim to own the Amadea by accusing him of being a “clean, unsanctioned straw owner” serving as a front for Kerimov. Khudainatov’s lawyers have denied he is a straw owner and say he is the legal owner of the yacht.

The picture was further muddied when it was alleged by the US in court documents that Khudainatov, who in June 2022 was placed under EU sanctions, was the fake owner of another, even more valuable and mysterious super yacht, the Scheherazade — which he has denied.

The Scheherazade, one of the longest yachts in the world, worth an estimated $700mn, was seized by the Italian authorities in the Tuscan port of Marina di Carrara in May 2022 because of its suspected “meaningful economic and business connections with prominent elements of the Russian government subject to EU sanctions”.

In 2022 the now deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation published an investigation that claimed that the Scheherazade was in fact owned by Putin himself, based on the fact that many of its crew were agents of the Federal Protective Service, a state security unit responsible for the Russian president’s personal safety.

The US authorities have argued it is impossible that one man could own so many yachts, writing in court documents that “there is no reason to believe [Khudainatov] has the financial resources to purchase the Amadea and the Scheherazade, or is there any apparent reason why a single individual would own multiple superyachts of their size”.

Whoever is the true owner of the Scheherazade, they have not let its seizure dim their ambitions. During the time it has been held in Tuscany, the Italian government has allowed the owner to pay for an expensive refurbishment. It is a decoration job that the owner clearly wants to conduct in privacy. When reporters from Radio Free Europe tried to get close to the vessel earlier this year the Scheherazade’s crew turned on fire hoses, and deployed a drone to follow them.

Meanwhile, last month a New York court ruled that the US government was not allowed to sell the Amadea, meaning that US taxpayers will have to continue for now to foot the bill for its upkeep. 

Even if governments are able to establish ownership and get court permission to sell a superyacht, further legal complexities can make finding a buyer difficult. In June 2023 the Alfa Nero, a yacht alleged to be owned by the US-sanctioned phosphate billionaire Andrey Guryev, which has been impounded in Falmouth Harbor, Antigua, was sold at auction for $67mn to former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.

The deal later fell apart, with the US ambassador to Antigua announcing that Schmidt backed out of the purchase because he was worried about future legal problems if he bought it.

Yulia Guryeva-Motlokhov, Guryev’s daughter, this year launched a challenge to the Antiguan government’s decision to seize and sell the Alfa Nero, claiming that she is the sole beneficiary of the trust that owns the yacht, rather than her father. The case is expected to be heard in September.

Back in the UK, Booth, the captain of Phi, believes that the yacht and its owner have been unfairly caught up in events outside of their control. “He’s not a billionaire, he’s never met Putin,” Booth says of Phi’s owner Sergei Naumenko. “He’s against the war. He’s just a private Russian gentleman who likes boats.” 

Phi will make another bid to be freed in the UK’s Supreme Court, in an appeal to be heard next January.

Captain Booth says he will not desert his ship. “My team and I have remained on board, remained loyal. I’ve won numerous awards for what I do in my industry. I could have left almost straight away, and said, ‘This is not my bag, I’m off to captain another superyacht in the Med’ . . . I would not sleep well at night if I abandoned this owner.”

But Booth and his crew may be waiting a long time. Cassella, the forfeiture lawyer, says he expects many cases to drag on for as long as a decade. “I thought two years ago when all the superyachts were seized that 10 years was an appropriate timeframe,” he says. “This is not going to be resolved any time soon.”

Miles Johnson is an investigative reporter for the FT. His book ‘Chasing Shadows: A True Story of Drugs, War and The Secret World of International Crime’ is now out in paperback

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