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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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U.S. moves to claim $300M superyacht associated with ‘Russian Gatsby’

The Justice Department officially moved Monday to claim a 348-foot superyacht it says belongs to a sanctioned billionaire oligarch known as the " Russian Gatsby ."

In a civil forfeiture claim filed in federal court in New York, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams' office said that the $300 million vessel, the Amadea , is "beneficially owned" by Suleiman Kerimov and that the "superyacht was improved and maintained in violation of applicable sanctions against Kerimov and those acting on his behalf."

The filing contends the yacht, which has a helipad, an infinity pool, a Jacuzzi and multiple bars, should be forfeited to the U.S. government.

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Kerimov , who's worth an estimated $14 billion and has ties to the Russian government, over alleged money laundering in 2018.

He has been referred to as a "Russian Gatsby" in part because he rarely does interviews while indulging in the high life. He has hosted multimillion-dollar parties at his villas on the French Riviera, including one in 2008 that reportedly featured a performance by Beyoncé, and his car collection includes a rare Ferrari Enzo, which he once crashed into a tree in 2006.

The yacht was seized in Fiji last year as part of the work of the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, which has been going after the assets of sanctioned oligarchs in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

The court filing said officials were able to prove Kerimov's ownership by showing that he was responsible for numerous upgrades to the vessel, including a new pizza oven.

However, another oligarch, Eduard Khudainatov, maintains that he's the owner of the Amadea and has filed legal challenges for its return. Khudainatov is the former chairman and CEO of Rosneft, the state-controlled gas company in Russia, and he has not been sanctioned by the U.S. government.

The Justice Department has said in court filings that Khudainatov is a "straw owner" and that he couldn't even afford the upkeep on the Amadea and another superyacht he says he owns.

Khudainatov's lawyer, Adam Ford, sued in federal court in California seeking the yacht's return late Sunday, before the federal action Monday. The filing says the government's estimate of his client's wealth is based in part on his failure to show up on Forbes' annual billionaires list, and it contends "a magazine's list should not be the basis of, or suffice as evidence for, any U.S. government enforcement action."

Ford said in a statement, "We are confident that a neutral arbiter will order the return of the Amadea to our client."

The U.S. has worked with numerous countries to seize a number of superyachts with ties to oligarchs, whose ownership interests are often hard to prove.

Task Force KleptoCapture co-director Michael Khoo said in a statement that the forfeiture proceeding against the Amadea came "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,” Khoo said.

Michael Kosnar is a Justice Department producer for the NBC News Washington Bureau.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

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The U.S. seized Russian oligarchs' superyachts. Now, American taxpayers pay the price

Ayesha Rascoe

Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Stephanie Baker, senior writer at Bloomberg News, about the complications involved in seizing and maintaining superyachts owned by sanctioned Russian billionaires.

AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:

When the U.S. and its allies looked for ways to sanction the Russian elite, they zeroed in on their superyachts, filled with luxuries like heated pools and wine cellars. But as Stephanie Baker reports, the powerful symbolism of seizing a superyacht is followed by the expense of maintaining those pools and wine cellars and everything else aboard these floating palaces. Stephanie Baker is a senior writer at Bloomberg News, and she joins us now. Thanks for being with us.

STEPHANIE BAKER: Thanks for having me.

RASCOE: So you've written a series of articles on the West's seizure of these yachts from Russian oligarchs. What have you learned about what goes into maintaining these types of boats? Like, you can't just let them sit at the dock?

BAKER: No, it's not a case of turning off the lights, locking up the door and leaving them until the war in Ukraine is over. These things take an enormous amount of money to maintain. Even stuck in ports, they have to be staffed with a, you know, minimal crew to be on board in case of accidents, fires, fuel spills, the like. You know, for insurance purposes, insurance is another cost. They need to be washed so they don't entail a multimillion-dollar repaint job. And, you know, it's an incredibly costly process and complicated.

RASCOE: Is part of the issue they don't know what they're going to do with them?

BAKER: Well, in the case of the U.S., they have vowed to sell them eventually through a complicated process called forfeiture, where they have to go before a judge and prove that this superyacht has been bought with the proceeds of crime or involved in some kind of crime. And that is a lengthy, difficult process, especially in the case of Russian-linked superyachts because it's not always clear who the owner is. One forfeiture expert compared it to seizing the proceeds of a drug lord. A drug lord may not have his mansion in his own name. It would be in his girlfriend's name. So there's a long process to establish not who owns it on paper, but who's really controlling it, who's directing it, who's making decisions about it.

RASCOE: So when the U.S. or the EU seizes a yacht, the cost of maintaining that yacht - it actually goes to the taxpayers, right? Like, so how much money are we talking about that taxpayers are paying?

BAKER: It is U.S. taxpayers that are paying for it, at least until they do sell it and then can recoup the costs. Typically, it costs 10% of a superyacht's value to maintain it. But when it's frozen in port, the cost will obviously be less. It's not eating as much fuel by cruising at sea. I did a lot of reporting to try to establish, what are the real costs of keeping these things in port. And I came to a pretty conservative estimate of something like 3%. Now, in the case of one superyacht, the one that the U.S. government seized and sailed from Fiji to San Diego, I established that the annual costs of keeping that in port are about 10 million a year.

RASCOE: So 10 million a year. That's for one yacht?

BAKER: That's for one yacht.

RASCOE: For one yacht.

BAKER: And that's a conservative estimate.

RASCOE: OK. And so all together, do you have any sense of how much that might be?

BAKER: Well, globally, including the EU and the U.K. - they've seized more than 15 superyachts. And we're talking tens of millions. But if you're a sanctioned Russian oligarch with your asset frozen in a port, how long are you really going to pay? So we're looking at potentially years of litigation over these vessels about who's paying, you know, the maintenance. And they're essentially going to be in sort of legal purgatory for many years.

RASCOE: And so, I mean, most of us will never step foot on a superyacht. So it's hard for us to imagine. What is the most outrageous luxury that you've come across or one that, you know, really stood out to you?

BAKER: Right. So I went to the Monaco Yacht Show at the end of September and got on board one of the most luxurious, expensive superyachts. It was just the most incredible floating mansion. It had hand-painted bathrooms, handmade curved bar, a pool, elaborate bedrooms, you know, very high ceilings, multiple decks. They are the most extravagant status symbol, really, amongst the billionaire class.

RASCOE: That's Stephanie Baker, senior writer at Bloomberg News. Thank you so much.

BAKER: Thank you for having me.

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Why the U.S. put a $1 million bounty on a Russian yacht’s alleged manager

On Sept. 3, 2020, the staff of a $90 million yacht placed an order with a U.S. company for a set of luxury bathrobes that came to $2,624.35.

For roughly two years before that, according to federal prosecutors, the yacht’s management had been falsely claiming it was working for a boat named “Fanta.” But the luxury bathrobes came embroidered with a monogram that, prosecutors said, revealed the yacht’s true identity: “Tango.”

That was a problem, officials say in court papers, because Tango was owned by a Russian billionaire under U.S. sanctions, and doing business on his behalf violated federal law.

Late last month, U.S. authorities unveiled a $1 million reward for information leading to the arrest and or conviction of the man they say was running the yacht staff and orchestrated the deception with the robes — Vladislav Osipov, 52, a Swiss-based businessman from Russia. In a new indictment , federal prosecutors say Osipov misled U.S. banks and companies into doing business with the Tango yacht despite the sanctions on the Russian owner, whom the Justice Department has identified as billionaire Viktor Vekselberg .

Osipov has denied the allegations. Osipov’s attorney has said that the government has failed to demonstrate that Vekselberg owned the yacht, and that its management was therefore not a sanctions violation.

The reward offer for Osipov reflects the latest stage in the evolution of the West’s broader financial war against Russia two years into the war in Ukraine, as the United States and its allies increasingly target intermediaries accused of enabling Russian oligarchs to circumvent sanctions.

Many Russians close to President Vladimir Putin have been under sanctions dating to 2014, when Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine and sent proxy forces into that country’s eastern Donbas region. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, President Biden vowed to deal a “crushing blow” with a barrage of new sanctions on financial institutions, industries, business executives and others tied to the Kremlin. But roughly two years later, Russia’s economy has proved surprisingly resilient after the nation poured tens of billions of dollars into ramping up its military industry. Moscow has also worked around the sanctions, finding new third parties to supply it with critical military and industrial hardware, as well as countries beyond Europe to buy its oil.

Now, the West is trying to increase the reach of its sanctions by digging deeper into Russian supply chains. Late last month, the Treasury Department announced more than 500 new sanctions targeting Russia , primarily on military and industrial suppliers. The Justice Department also announced charges against two U.S.-based “facilitators” of a Russian state banker who is under sanction, as well as the guilty plea of a dual national based in Atlanta who was accused of laundering $150 million through bank accounts and shell companies on behalf of Russian clients.

Prioritizing criminal charges against — and the arrests of — Western employees of Russia’s elites represents a new escalation of the U.S. financial war against Putin, experts say. One Moscow businessman, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said many influential Russians are concerned about the arrest of two associates of Andrey Kostin, the head of VTB, Russia’s second-biggest state bank. These associates, Vadim Wolfson and Gannon Bond, were charged with helping Kostin evade sanctions by maintaining a $12 million property in Aspen, Colo., for Kostin’s benefit while concealing his ownership. Kostin has said that the charges of sanctions evasion against him are “unfounded” and that he has not violated any laws . Bond has pleaded not guilty; Wolfson hasn’t made an initial court appearance yet.

Wolfson, also known as Vadim Belyaev, had been a Russian billionaire until the Russian government took over his bank in 2017. Bond, 49, is a U.S. citizen from Edgewater, N.J. For all Russians living abroad and working with people in Russia, the threat of criminal charges is a much more worrying prospect than the sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department last month against hundreds of individuals and entities, the businessman said, in part because sanctions are far easier to dodge than criminal charges.

“What you have seen through today’s public announcements are our efforts at really targeting the facilitators who possess the requisite skill set, access, connections that allow the Russian war machine [and] the Russian elites to continually have access to Western services and Western goods,” David Lim, co-director of the Justice Department’s KleptoCapture task force, which is tasked with enforcing U.S. sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, told reporters last month.

Thad McBride, an international trade partner at the law firm Bass Berry & Sims, said the crackdown on intermediaries reflected the natural evolution of the U.S. sanctions campaign in response to Russian adjustments.

“It seems to me they have gone through a comprehensive list of the oligarchs, and you can debate whether or not it’s had a meaningful impact on the Russian war effort,” McBride said. “Because they’re getting smarter about who’s who, they’re finding other people who play meaningful roles in these transactions, even though they’re not showing up in the headlines.”

The charges against Osipov related to his alleged management of the Tango yacht illustrate the mounting potential consequences for people in Europe and the United States who attempt to do business with Russians targeted by Western allies, as well as the opaque structures allegedly employed by those seeking to evade sanctions.

With a net worth estimated by Forbes in 2021 at $9 billion, Vekselberg, 66, has long drawn scrutiny from the West — and sought to safeguard his wealth. He made his initial fortune in aluminum and oil in Russia’s privatization of the 1990s and then expanded into industrial and financial assets in Europe, the United States and Africa, with Putin’s blessing. In addition to the yacht, federal prosecutors say, Vekselberg acquired $75 million worth of properties, including apartments on New York’s Park Avenue and an estate in the Long Island town of Southampton.

Vekselberg, who declined to comment for this article, has not been criminally charged by the Justice Department. In a 2019 interview with the Financial Times, he denounced the sanctions as arbitrary and harmful for international business, saying he had been targeted just because he was Russian and rich and knows Putin.

In April 2018, the Treasury Department under the Trump administration sanctioned Vekselberg and six other Russian oligarchs as part of broader financial penalties over the Kremlin’s invasion of Crimea, support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Vekselberg was also targeted for his work for the Kremlin as chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation, an attempt to create Russia’s version of the Silicon Valley — evidence that appeared to undermine the Russian businessman’s claims that he operated independently of the Kremlin.

But with Vekselberg’s payments monitored by U.S. banks, according to the federal indictment , Osipov used shell companies and intermediaries to avert the bite of sanctions. Vekselberg kept other major assets out of the reach of U.S. authorities by making use of the Treasury Department’s 50 percent ownership rule, which stipulates that it is illegal to transact with firms only if an owner under sanction controls more than 50 percent of the business.

For example, a month after Treasury imposed sanctions on Vekselberg in April 2018, his Renova Innovation Technologies sold its 48.5 percent stake in Swiss engineering giant Sulzer to Tiwel Holding AG, a group that is nevertheless still “beneficially owned” — meaning, owned in practice — by Vekselberg through Columbus Trust, a Cayman Islands trust, according to Sulzer’s corporate filing. Vekselberg’s longtime right-hand man at Renova, Alexei Moskov, replaced one of Vekselberg’s direct representatives on the board. Moskov told The Washington Post that he stepped down from all his executive positions at Renova Group in 2018 after U.S. sanctions were first imposed and from that moment ceased to be Vekselberg’s employee.

The attempts to circumvent the sanctions appear to have found some success in the U.S. legal system. Columbus Nova, a U.S.-based asset management fund controlling more than $100 million in assets in the U.S. financial and tech industry, is run by Vekselberg’s cousin, Andrew Intrater. The firm battled for more than two years to lift a freeze on Columbus Nova’s assets, imposed by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control because of the sanctions on Vekselberg, and won, reaching a settlement agreement with the Treasury Department. After renaming itself Sparrow Capital LLC, Columbus Nova successfully argued that Intrater — not Vekselberg — owns the fund. Intrater argued that the company was 100 percent owned by U.S. citizens and that no individual or entity under sanction held any interest in it. Intrater said Columbus Nova had earned fees for managing investment funds owned by Renova. He said he had repeatedly told Treasury he would not distribute any funds to Vekselberg.

Now Osipov, the alleged manager of Vekselberg’s $90 million yacht, is attempting a similar argument as U.S. authorities seek his arrest on charges of bank fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and violations of sanctions law.

The federal indictment states that the Tango was owned by a shell corporation registered in the British Virgin Islands that was in turn owned by several other companies. The Virgin Islands shell company, authorities say, was controlled by Osipov, who also served in senior roles for multiple companies controlled by Vekselberg. U.S. officials also say Vekselberg ultimately controlled the other companies that owned the Virgin Islands shell company.

According to the indictment, a Tango official instructed a boat management company in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, to use a false name for the yacht — “Fanta” — to disguise its true identity from U.S. financial institutions and firms, which try to avoid doing business with an entity or person under sanction.

Working at Osipov’s direction, according to the indictment, employees for Tango bought more than $8,000 worth of goods for the yacht that were unwittingly but illegally processed by U.S. firms and U.S. financial institutions, including navigation software, leather basket magazine holders provided by a bespoke silversmith, and web and computing services. The management company running Tango, run by Osipov, also paid invoices worth more than $180,000 to a U.S. internet service provider, federal prosecutors say.

The Tango was seized by the FBI and Spanish authorities in the Mediterranean not long after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and Osipov was first indicted last year. The owner of the Spanish yacht management company hired by Osipov, Richard Masters, 52, of Britain, was criminally charged last year by federal prosecutors with conspiracy to defraud the United States and violating federal sanctions law. A request for comment sent to Masters’ firm was not returned.

But in recent court documents, Osipov’s attorney argues that the yacht was not more than 50 percent owned by Vekselberg, and that the government hasn’t demonstrated it was. Barry J. Pollack, an attorney at Harris, St. Laurent and Wechsler, also says the government never warned Osipov of its novel and “unconstitutional” application of federal sanctions law.

“The government points to no precedent that supports its extraordinary interpretation and cites no authority that allows the traditional rules of statutory construction to be turned on their head,” Pollack wrote in a defense filing. The filing adds: “[Osipov] is not a fugitive because he did not engage in any of the allegedly criminal conduct while in the United States, has never resided in the United States, did not flee from the United States, and has not concealed himself.”

Still, the State Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program has said it will provide up to $1 million for information leading to Osipov’s arrest, warning that he may visit Herrliberg, Switzerland; Majorca, Spain; or Moscow.

The case demonstrates the extent of the U.S. commitment to tighten the screws on those seen as aiding Russian elites, even if they themselves are not closely tied to the Kremlin.

“When DOJ levels legal action against an individual or entity, they have quite a bit of evidence, especially because the threshold to press charges for money-laundering and sanctions evasion is so high,” said Kim Donovan, director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. “We’ve had quite a bit of experience targeting Russia directly, and what you’re starting to see is the U.S. go after the facilitators enabling sanctions evasion. That’s where the U.S. is focusing its efforts right now.”

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Russian Superyachts Find Safe Haven in Turkey, Raising Concerns in Washington

Turkey’s welcoming ports are symptoms of a much larger problem: evasion of U.S. sanctions against Russia.

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By Elif Ince ,  Michael Forsythe and Carlotta Gall

PORT AZURE, Turkey — On a hot August evening at a marina on Turkey’s southern coast, the crew of the Flying Fox was hard at work, keeping the 446-foot superyacht immaculate for future guests willing to pay $3 million a week. One crew member leaned over the railing at the stern, wiping the highly polished surface next to the ship’s nameplate. Another was busy with a squeegee, cleaning glass.

The Flying Fox, the world’s biggest yacht available for charter, played host last year to Beyoncé and Jay-Z, who skipped the Met Gala in New York to cruise the Mediterranean and enjoy the vessel’s over-the-top amenities: a 4,300-square-foot wellness center with a Turkish bath and a fully equipped beauty spa, among many others.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, the Flying Fox has been caught up in the dragnet of international sanctions designed to hobble the lifestyles of the oligarchs who help sustain President Vladimir V. Putin’s rule.

Yet, while some superyachts owned by or linked to Russian oligarchs facing sanctions have been seized in ports around the world, the Flying Fox and others caught up in the broader Russia penalties have found safe haven in Turkey, the only NATO member not to impose sanctions on Russia.

The flotilla of Russian superyachts in Turkish waters is raising tensions with the United States, which sees Turkey’s welcoming of the vessels as a symptom of the much larger problem: Russia’s access to Turkey’s financial system, potentially undermining Western sanctions.

Turkey’s strongman leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has criticized Western sanctions against Russia, said in March that Turkey could not impose sanctions because of its energy needs and industry deals. “There is nothing to be done there,” he said.

In all, at least 32 yachts tied to oligarchs and sanctioned entities have sheltered in the country’s waters in recent months, able to move about or moor in its picturesque coves and bays without fear of seizure, according to a New York Times analysis. Ownership records of superyachts for the ultrawealthy are notorious for being hidden behind layers of shell companies. The Times analysis was constructed with news accounts linking Russian oligarchs to particular yachts that were then matched with vessel positions available on commercial sites such as MarineTraffic . In many instances, the yachts were spotted in Turkish waters by a Times reporter.

On Aug. 19, the Treasury Department issued a statement saying that the deputy treasury secretary, Wally Adeyemo, had told a Turkish official that the United States was concerned about Russians using Turkey to evade sanctions.

Three days later, Mr. Adeyemo sent a letter to Turkish business groups warning of penalties if they worked with Russian individuals or entities facing sanctions. Turkish banks, he added, risked losing vital correspondent relationships with global banks — and even access to the U.S. dollar — if they did business with sanctioned Russian banks.

In September, several Turkish banks stopped accepting the Mir payment system — the Russian equivalent of Visa or MasterCard. Their actions came after the United States warned that financial institutions expanding the use of Mir or entering into new agreements risked running afoul of American sanctions against Russia.

Nevertheless, Turkish marinas continue to service sanctioned Russians and their superyachts.

The warm turquoise waters, secluded beaches and trendy establishments of Turkey’s Mediterranean coast have long made it a popular and convenient destination for Russian yacht owners and charterers during the summer. Local restaurant menus are printed in three languages: Turkish, English and Russian.

In June, the Flying Fox was singled out by the United States as “ blocked property ” and its management company, Imperial Yachts, was also sanctioned. Nevertheless, the Flying Fox has been moored since at least May at Port Azure, a marina in the posh resort town of Göcek. Other superyachts there owned by or linked to sanctioned Russians have been cruising from one postcard-worthy cove to another in the area.

The town’s polluted waters are unsuitable for swimming, an attractive feature for superyacht owners because it keeps away crowds and unwanted publicity. And the vessels can easily steam to pristine waters nearby. If the pampered guests have any unfulfilled needs, small boats roam around the harbor, selling groceries, ice cream, Turkish crepes and even massages.

Port Azure, touted as the first “mega-yacht-only marina” in Turkey, was opened last year by STFA, one of Turkey’s biggest conglomerates. The marina , which prides itself on its website as being a “haven” that makes “problems big and small go away,” has hosted at least eight yachts linked to Russian oligarchs or sanctioned companies this past summer, the Times analysis found.

On June 1, a Turkish yacht broker posted on Instagram a video taken at Port Azure showing a lineup of five yachts collectively worth almost $1 billion, including the Flying Fox; the Lana, recently listed at $1.8 million a week for charter by Imperial; and the Galactica Super Nova, linked to Vagit Alekperov, a sanctioned Putin ally, according to news media reports.

As of Oct. 20 there were at least 13 yachts in Turkey linked to sanctions, the Times analysis found. Of those, four were owned by or linked to sanctioned individuals and nine have recently been offered for charter by Imperial, the sanctioned Monaco-based company.

A spokeswoman for Imperial Yachts said that after the firm was sanctioned in June, its clients terminated their contracts with the company and that it “no longer manages or charters” any of the yachts in Turkish waters.

But until late August, Imperial advertised yachts for charter and for sale on its website, including yachts in Turkish waters. After an inquiry by The Times, the listings were removed from Imperial’s website, which now displays only a notice announcing that the company had been sanctioned. The company spokeswoman said that it had “kept its other pages alive as a reflection of its former brand.”

“During the time that the other website pages were visible, Imperial did not engage in any business engagements,” Imperial said in response to emailed questions.

Roman Abramovich, the most visible Russian oligarch recently seen in Turkey, does not use Imperial Yachts to manage the construction of his opulent yachts or staff them after they are put to sea. Four yachts owned by or linked to Mr. Abramovich, who has been sanctioned by Britain and the European Union, the Times analysis shows, were in Turkey in August.

Should the United States choose, it has tools at its disposal to enforce its sanctions on the Russian oligarchs, even if their vessels are in Turkish waters and even if the Turkish government is unwilling to cooperate, said Daniel Tannebaum, a former sanctions official who served at the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

One way, he said, would be to place sanctions on companies that service the oligarchs’ yachts in Turkey — the marinas, caterers and fueling companies. In that case, not just Russian yacht owners but also the many American yacht owners now in Turkish waters would have to take their business elsewhere, while the banks that do business with these companies might close their accounts so as to avoid becoming a target.

Superyachts are a significant source of income for the marinas, as well as other businesses in the area. In one example, Turkish news media outlets reported in April that Mr. Abramovich’s biggest yacht, the 533-foot-long Eclipse, ran up a fuel bill of $1.66 million in the port town of Marmaris. Its tanks took 22 hours to fill.

One of the four superyachts linked to Mr. Abramovich, the 460-foot Solaris, is moored in the Yalıkavak Marina in Bodrum, a trendy resort town in Turkey’s south. While lying idle, it still has 20 crew members who make trips every day to provision it, supply it with water and electricity and dispose of its waste, according to a port employee with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke anonymously because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

Solaris also receives a truckload of food every week through a catering company, he said, adding: “Twenty cases of asparagus — what would you do with so much asparagus?”

Yalıkavak is Turkey’s most luxurious marina, with stores like Prada, Louis Vuitton and Valentino on a promenade lined with palm trees overlooking the harbor. At least three yachts recently offered for charter by Imperial, the sanctioned management company, and three other yachts owned by or linked to oligarchs moored at Yalıkavak Marina this summer, the Times analysis shows.

In an emailed statement, the marina said that even though Turkey has not adopted sanctions, because it recognizes “international concerns,” the Solaris has been kept outside the marina’s boundaries. As for the vessels associated with Imperial Yachts, the marina said that it did not know, as the summer is “quite a busy time” and that it didn’t have a system in place to check whether an individual yacht might fall under international sanctions.

In August, the Eclipse, one of the yachts linked to Mr. Abramovich, was anchored in the middle of the bay off Göcek, a three-and-a-half-hour drive down the coast from Yalıkavak.

On an early morning in August, Ömer Kırpat, 56, was fishing on the shore in Göcek, sitting under a willow tree overlooking the yachts.

“The bells aren’t jingling,” he said, pointing to the bells attached to his rods to alert him when the fish bite. He showed his bucket with one lone fish inside, explaining that the fish avoid the shore because of pollution and noise from the boats.

Port Azure, the Göcek marina hosting the Flying Fox, was built over the port of a state-owned paper factory where Mr. Kırpat worked for 13 years as a security guard until it was privatized in 2001. He used to go there to swim, fish and have picnics every weekend with other factory workers and their families. “It was sparkly clean,” he said. “We caught the biggest fish there.”

He tried to go into Port Azure last year but was chased away. “We’re banned,” he said. “Soon they won’t even allow us to look inside. It’s heartbreaking.”

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

Carlotta Gall is a senior correspondent currently covering the war in Ukraine. She previously was Istanbul bureau chief, covered the aftershocks of the Arab Spring from Tunisia, and reported from the Balkans during the war in Kosovo and Serbia, and from Afghanistan and Pakistan after 2001. She was on a team that won a 2009 Pulitzer Prize for reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan. More about Carlotta Gall

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A day after securing a new term in a rubber-stamp presidential election, President Vladimir Putin of Russia said he would not back down in Russia’s war against Ukraine .

With additional American aid still in doubt, Lloyd Austin, the U.S. defense secretary, called for “creative, adaptable and sustainable ways” to continue arming Ukraine  and praised European allies who were trying to bolster Kyiv’s military.

Ukraine fired a volley of exploding drones  at Moscow and other targets on the final day of Russia’s presidential vote, the local authorities said, continuing a flurry of attacks timed for the election .

Elaborate Tales: As the Ukraine war grinds on, the Kremlin has created increasingly complex fabrications online  to discredit Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, and undermine the country’s support in the West.

Targeting Russia’s Oil Industry: With its army short of ammunition and troops to break the deadlock on the battlefield, Kyiv has increasingly taken the fight beyond the Ukrainian border, attacking oil infrastructure deep in Russian territory .

Electronic Warfare: Drones have become a critical weapon for both Russia and Ukraine. But Moscow’s capability to overpower Ukrainian signals  by broadcasting on the same frequencies at higher power is putting Kyiv at a disadvantage.

How We Verify Our Reporting

Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs , videos and radio transmissions  to independently confirm troop movements and other details.

We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts .

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Mystery Russian superyacht sets sail for the US after Fiji court ruling

Russian oil boss linked to ‘Putin’s yacht’ at centre of US court case

• US wins legal battle to seize $325m superyacht docked in Fiji

She cost $325m (£258m) to build, and millions more each year to run. When not at sea, the Amadea superyacht requires a crew of 24 deckhands and engineers to keep her shipshape.

In written evidence to a court in Fiji, where the vessel has been the subject of a legal battle over which Russian oligarch she belongs to, her captain listed the costly, and perishable materials: marble, gilded metal fittings, sensitive carpets, silk, precious woods and leathers, teak decking, mirror polished stainless steel and a high gloss paint system.

Without the right care, and the kind of temperature and humidity controls normally used to preserve valuable artworks, the captain said the Amadea would “rapidly deteriorate”, leaving “an unsaleable hull”. He put the cost of simply keeping her in dry dock at $1.1m per month. “There are a very, very limited number of buyers who can afford her upkeep, let alone her purchase price,” he explained.

The identity of that buyer will now be settled in a US court. Seized during a voyage in the South Pacific at the request of the US authorities, the Amadea has spent the last few weeks docked in Lautoka Wharf in Fiji, awaiting the outcome of a legal dispute between the Department of Justice in the US and the British Virgin Islands company in whose name she is registered.

Fiji’s supreme court ruled on Tuesday morning that the vessel could be handed to the US authorities, and the Amadea is now headed for America.

Lawyers acting for a previously low-profile Russian oil boss, Eduard Khudainatov, insist he is the owner. They say he is the settlor of a trust, established under English law, which ultimately holds the vessel through a twisting trail of offshore companies. American officials allege Khudainatov is merely a stand-in. They say the Amadea belongs to one of Russia’s richest men, the gold tycoon Suleiman Kerimov, who is currently subject to western sanctions.

The case is significant because America has raised the question of whether Khudainatov may be fronting as the owner of another, even more valuable mega-yacht. The $700m Scheherazade, with its six decks and two helipads, was seized in Tuscany following the invasion of Ukraine. Khudainatov is reported to hold the yacht via another offshore structure, but he has not confirmed this, leaving its true ownership even less certain than the Amadea. The Italian police are investigating claims that the vessel may ultimately belong to Vladimir Putin, who like Kerimov is now blacklisted in Europe and the US.

The combined value of both yachts is $1bn.

In court documents, US authorities said the fact that Khudainatov “is being held out as the owner of the two largest superyachts on record, both linked to sanctioned individuals” suggested he was being used as a “clean, unsanctioned straw owner to conceal the true beneficial owners of these vessels”.

The 61-year-old businessman’s links with Putin date back to his first presidential campaign, in 2000, which Khudainatov helped organise. A one-time pig breeder from Kazakhstan, he has also been described as a friend of former deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, who succeeded him as the boss of state-owned oil giant Rosneft in 2013.

Khudainatov’s oil business has acquired significant stakes in companies involved in the energy sector, together with their extraction licences, from Rosneft, according to the EU sanctions listing. And Rosneft has paid $9.6bn to Khudainatov in exchange for a company that owns an oilfield in Taymyr, in Siberia, it said. His business has grown rapidly.

While US authorities admitted that Khudainatov was “wealthy” they claimed that “there is no reason to believe he 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,” according to court filings.

Until last week, Khudainatov had not been placed under sanctions in any jurisdiction. On Friday, however, the European Union added him to its blacklist. It cited the benefits he gained from running a sizeable Russian oil company, but did not mention his connection to the yachts.

The EU’s restrictions against the Kazakhstani businessman have yet to be mirrored by the UK and US.

“Russia’s elites, up to and including President Putin, rely on complex support networks to hide, move and maintain their wealth and luxury assets,” Brian Nelson, the under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the US Treasury Department, said last week. “We will continue to enforce our sanctions and expose the corrupt systems by which President Putin and his elites enrich themselves,” he added.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the Amadea’s corporate owner, Millemarin Investments, said the company was established in June 2021, just a month before it was recorded as the new owner of the vessel. Millemarin, in turn, is owned by another BVI registered firm, Invest International Finance, which counts a Swiss entity, Boltenko Trust, as its sole shareholder. The trust was run by Olga Boltenko, an international tax and wealth advisor who is qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales and has worked for top British law firms including Hogan Lovells and Withers.

Boltenko said in a statement released on Tuesday that she and her firm had resigned and were no longer acting for the September Trust or Millemarin Investments.

But last month when she was still acting for Khudainatov Boltenko said in court documents that her firm was the trustee of the September Trust, an irrevocable, discretionary trust established in December 2019 under English law, whose settlor (the individual whose assest were placed in the trust) is Khudainatov. In her evidence, she did not name the beneficiary of the trust. However, she stated that to the best of her knowledge, Kerimov “has never held any interest in any of the companies and/or trust identified” .

The US justice department contends the Amadea has belonged to Kerimov since the autumn of 2021, transferred, it claimed, in a “backdoor Russian deal”. It cited as evidence interviews of crew members and yacht industry employees conducted by an FBI agent.

Crew members said “measures were taken to ensure privacy” for the yacht’s guests, according the the filing. Each member of the family had been given codenames: Kerimov was G-0, his wife G-1. The crew were shown photos of Kerimov and his family, and claimed they had been holidaying on board as recently as February 2022, in St Barts and St Maarten in the Caribbean. They said during a four-month tour this year, the family had been the “only guests onboard”.

Kerimov and Khudainatov could not be reached to comment.

Investigations over the Amadea’s ultimate owner is now in the hands of the US authorities. As is the fate of one of the world’s most expensive pleasure crafts.

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Who's Paying for Russian Oligarch's Seized Yacht in San Diego Bay?

The amadea, which superyachttimes.com called the 63rd largest yacht in the world, tied up monday at naval base san diego, in national city, by eric s. page and mari payton • published june 28, 2022 • updated on june 28, 2022 at 2:11 pm.

Many San Diegans who saw the news about the Amadea — the $325 million seized Russian oligarch's yacht that docked in San Diego on Monday — may be wondering: Who's paying for that?

Imagine how much the fuel costs to sail it more than 5,000 miles from Fiji, where it was seized earlier this month, to San Diego? A local marine fuel dock quoted the following prices, if you're wondering: $7.40 for gas, $7.35 for diesel. According to SuperYachtTimes.com, the Amadea has a 392,000-liter fuel tank. That works out to about 103,555 gallons, so it could cost $766,307 or so just to fill up.

And then there are maintence costs on a 350-foot long yacht, which, you can be sure, are extensive and necessary — in fact, not undertaking such efforts can cause the vessel's value to decline if it deteriotes due to neglect.

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The Amadea carries a full complement of 36 crew, including the captain, according to SuperYachtTimes, but it won't need nearly that many once she tied up at Naval Base San Diego in National City. Nevertheless, someone will be monitoring the yacht and conducting the maintenance.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the yacht was bought with what it calls "dirty money," and, as such, some may be relieved to hear, will be sold to the highest bidder. Presumably, the associated post-seizure costs accrued after its seizure will be coming off the top of the sale price. Until then, the Amadea, which SuperYachtTimes called the 63rd larges yacht in the world, will resume in the custody of the U.S.

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Officials with the DOJ said the Amadea, which was seized in connection to the department's KleptoCapture campaign undertaken in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, was owned by Suleiman Kerimov a Russian billionaire.

After the yacht arrived in San Diego, John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor, told NBC 7 that he thinks the U.S. government hopes moves like the Amadea's seizure are efforts to apply pressure to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this month, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said, regarding the Amadea, “The department had its eyes on every yacht purchased with dirty money. This yacht seizure should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide — not even in the remotest part of the world. We will use every means of enforcing the sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine.”

The court ruling represented a significant victory for the U.S. as it encounters obstacles in its attempts to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs around the world. While those efforts are welcomed by many who oppose the war in Ukraine, some actions have tested the limits of American jurisdiction abroad.

The United States wasted no time in taking command of the after a Fiji court ruled in its favor and sailed the ship away from the South Pacific nation just hours after the ruling.

"If you could say or somehow prove that this boat … that the oligarch had the money for this boat because he bribed Vladimir Putin, that is public corruption," Kirby said. "It’s a crime even when it takes place outside the United States. The United States can still act upon it."

According the website, the Amadea is not currently for sale, but that may soon change. Until then, you can "shop" for other eye-popping, wallet-busting boats here .

The Associated Press contributed to this report — Ed.

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You can’t cover up the truth — not even in a luxury robe.

The US government is offering a reward of up to $1 million for a businessman who allegedly helped a Russian oligarch’s yacht circumvent sanctions — until the scheme was revealed by an order for monogrammed bathrobes.

Swiss-based businessman Vladislav Osipov, 52, is wanted on charges including bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy for his role as a high-level employee of billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, the Justice Department announced last month .

A few months after Vekselberg was sanctioned by the US government in April 2018, Osipov allegedly instructed a boat management firm in Spain to disguise his $90 million yacht, Tango, by referring to it as the Fanta, the federal indictment stated.

At Osipov’s instruction, yacht employees used the false name to buy thousands of dollars worth of goods and services that were processed by US companies and financial institutions that would otherwise have refused to do business with a sanctioned buyer, the document alleged.

In addition to navigation software, leather magazine holders and web services, the management company running the Tango shelled out over $180,000 to a US internet provider, the feds said.

But a smoking gun appeared on Sept. 3, 2020, with the purchase of $2,600 monogrammed luxury robes — that gave away the Fanta’s real name, Tango.

The company ordered a second set of robes the following year, which contained explicit instructions that the ship should be referred to as Fanta on the invoice, even though the robes themselves bore a different name, the indictment read.

The Tango was seized in the Mediterranean by the FBI and Spanish authorities shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Washington Post reported.

Osipov was initially indicted last year, documents showed. The owner of the Spanish management company, Richard Masters, was charged with conspiracy to defraud the US and violating federal sanctions, the Washington Post added .

As of late February, the Justice Department is offering up to $1 million for information leading to Osipov’s arrest.

The Swiss-based former Russian citizen may be in Herrliberg, Switzerland; Majorca, Spain; or Moscow, the feds warned.

The charges against Osipov are indicative of the government’s increased interest in expanding the reach of sanctions against Russian interests by targeting Western associates, the Washington Post suggested.

Just last month, the Justice Department announced charges against two stateside “facilitators” who supposedly helped Russian bank head Andrey Kostin conceal his ownership of a $12 million Aspen, Colo., property, the outlet noted.

The threat of criminal charges, the Washington Post said, is more concerning to Russians living and working in the West than the slew of Treasury Department sanctions.

“What you have seen through today’s public announcements are our efforts at really targeting the facilitators who possess the requisite skill set, access, connections that allow the Russian war machine [and] the Russian elites to continually have access to Western services and Western goods,” David Lim, co-director of the Justice Department’s KleptoCapture task force, said last month.

“It seems to me they have gone through a comprehensive list of the oligarchs, and you can debate whether or not it’s had a meaningful impact on the Russian war effort,” Thad McBride, an international trade partner at the law firm Bass Berry & Sims, told the Washington Post.

“Because they’re getting smarter about who’s who, they’re finding other people who play meaningful roles in these transactions, even though they’re not showing up in the headlines.”

Vekselberg, 66, has previously complained that he is unfairly targeted by US sanctions simply because he is Russian, wealthy, and connected with President Vladimir Putin, the newspaper said.

According to the documents, Osipov also helped Vekselberg use the shadow entities to circumvent the Treasury Department’s 50 percent ownership rule, which makes it illegal to do business with a firm if the sanctioned owner controls over 50 percent of the company.

Osipov’s attorney, Barry J. Pollack, argued that the Tango was not more than 50% owned by Vekselberg, and that the government’s application of the federal sanctions in this case was “unconstitutional.”

“The government points to no precedent that supports its extraordinary interpretation and cites no authority that allows the traditional rules of statutory construction to be turned on their head,” Pollack wrote in the opposition filing.

Pollack also insisted that his client is not a fugitive because he never engaged in illegal activity on US soil and never lived there.

Pollack did not immediately return The Post’s request for a comment.

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I tutored the children of Russia's elite amid the backdrop of war. One teenager said he had his own massage therapist.

• I used to teach the children of Russian oligarchs and politicians.
• Our classrooms were penthouse apartments, yachts, and mansions in exclusive Moscow suburbs.
• The outbreak of war in Ukraine revealed just how isolated the kids were. 

This essay is based on the recollections of Cameron Manley, 24, a news fellow at Business Insider who previously worked as a private tutor in Moscow and, following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Monaco. The names of students have been changed to protect their identity.

In late 2021, I started working for an international tutoring agency in Moscow.

The agency counted some of Russia's elite among its clientele — so I was quickly thrust into a world of private jets, guarded estates, and personal chauffeurs.

I worked in Moscow until Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when I was relocated to Monaco.

We charged $150 per hour minimum for classes, but more experienced tutors and specific packages for private-school assessments or English-language testing would cost more.

Tutoring does not require any kind of formal qualification, but parents were still often happy to part with their cash as long as the tutors had a native-English accent and some connection to either the British private school system or some of the UK's top universities.

$150 was also small change for many of these families, which was reflected in the various classroom settings — Monaco penthouses, Moscow mansions, and yachts.

The money the Russian elite were willing to throw at young, inexperienced tutors was unbelievable — and frankly quite frightening.

I had acquaintances who worked as governors or nannies who were earning well into six figures.

Others were offered similarly extortionate salaries to spend their summers teaching on yachts in places like St. Barts in the Caribbean or sailing around the world.

I taught in luxurious villas and penthouse apartments

Often the children we taught, who were from four to around 18 years old, had private drivers who hurried them about in tinted Range Rovers or Mercedes-Benz cars.

In Moscow, many of our classes took place in Rublevka, an elite guarded estate in the west of the capital, where Russian President Vladimir Putin owns a home.

Many of the kids we taught lived in a world entirely different from any we had known.

A colleague of mine did after-school classes there with an eight-year-old boy called Ivan.

One week his family had been planning a weekend trip to get away from the capital: "I hope the weather isn't too bad so we can take the helicopter and don't have to drive," he said.

We also homeschooled two pupils: Alexei, 13, and his younger sister, Elena, 11.

The first time I met Alexei, he walked into our office sporting $1,000 Balenciaga trainers and a watch worth at least five times as much.

He was nevertheless a pleasant child but, like Ivan, appeared somewhat disconnected from reality.

In one class, he was shocked to hear that we didn't receive regular pampering from staff at home: "It's been seven months since you had a massage? I have a massage every day, I have my own massage therapist," he told us.

Elena was less communicative and didn't seem to enjoy the lavish lifestyle she had.

"What have I done to deserve this? I hate my life," she would often say.

My colleagues and I became increasingly concerned about her well-being as time went on.

She didn't enjoy classes alone and wanted to be with friends in a normal school.

But her parents insisted.

She seem tied to the life into which she had been born.

The job constantly surprised me

I met two types of parents in the job: Those who spent thousands of dollars on their children because they cared about them, and those who spent the money so that they didn't have to think about them.

I felt that many of the parents fell into the latter category.

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Frequently, we had little, if any, contact with the parents, and we would usually deal with nannies or drivers instead.

It felt like many of the parents found you to be an eye-sore in their luxurious lives.

Once, I had to teach a lesson at a seaside villa in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, an exclusive area between Nice in the south of France and Monaco.

The home was on a private road, and I entered through a large automatic gate that was littered with security cameras.

The house was spread out over two floors, with a swimming pool, a fully-equipped gym, a sauna, and a steam room.

When I arrived, they told me that the kids, aged four and six, had not finished their personal training session and that I would have to wait outside in the street.

Eventually the nanny said she would find me somewhere to sit "out of sight," so I was hurried into a large store cupboard in the furthest corner of the house. The kids strolled in about an hour later.

Some tried to get their children out of Russia after the invasion began

When the war in Ukraine broke out, a number of families came to us looking to find school placements for their children either in the West or in the United Arab Emirates , where many wealthy Russians fled at the outbreak of the war.

There was one family with three young children who were looking to find schools in Dubai.

Speaking to us in perfect English on Zoom with a background that boasted enormous paintings and palatial pillars, they seemed polite, well-mannered, and bright.

We later discovered that the kids were the grandchildren of a senior Russian politician who had played a major role in starting the war in Ukraine.

The irony was not lost on us that some of those who had played a key part in helping Putin initiate his brutal, unprovoked invasion were now trying to help their children escape Russia.

The children often brought up politics and the war

The company we worked for had explicitly told us to avoid discussing politics with the pupils, as the government was cracking down on protestors, and it could have put us and our pupils in danger.

But the children often brought the topic up themselves, their comments ringing with the ideology they had likely absorbed at home.

"Ukraine is ours, after all," Alexei told me in one class just after the invasion began in February.

Ivan, referring to a picture of Putin, once said, "Oh, he's amazing! Don't you think he's amazing?"

"You should open an office in Kyiv. It's beautiful there," one parent also wryly said to me.

There were occasional breakthroughs

We taught many different pupils but only one really seemed to appreciate just how lucky they were.

Elizaveta, 15, frequently expressed her discontent with Putin's Russia.

"We're killing thousands of innocent Ukrainians. It's awful," she once said.

That week, she had been kicked out of school for dyeing her hair and had asked her parents to book some additional classes so that she didn't fall behind.

Her parents were looking to send her to an English private school that September.

"The best thing I can do now is leave Russia," she told me. "That's the last option I have. Perhaps from abroad, I might be able to do some good."

Elizaveta was an anomaly, and most of the time, you had to settle for smaller victories.

I distinctly remember telling our homeschooled pupils that my colleagues and I had decided to leave Russia .

Elena seemed like she could not have cared less.

But Alexei looked genuinely upset.

It was as though the prism through which he saw the world had been, if not broken, then at the very least a little scratched.

Watch: VIDEO: How Russian media manufactured an alternate reality about the war in Ukraine

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