russian oil tycoon yacht

Justice Department, Russian Billionaire Battle Over Seized Superyacht

T he Justice Department last year seized a superyacht as part of a crackdown on Russia’s business elite. Now a tug of war has erupted over who owns it.

On Monday, as a Russian oil tycoon sued the U.S. government to get the 348-foot Amadea back, prosecutors said it isn’t his and sought to have it forfeited, saying it really belongs to another billionaire close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Justice Department said the $325 million yacht belongs to Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, a business tycoon-turned-politician, who was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2018, accused of money laundering and tax evasion. It filed a complaint in Manhattan federal court Monday seeking the vessel’s forfeiture.

“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,” said Michael Khoo, co-director of a Justice Department task force targeting such assets.

Not true, said Eduard Khudainatov, a former president of Rosneft Oil. He sued the U.S. government Monday, saying he is the rightful owner of the Amadea, which authorities confiscated in May 2022 as part of an international effort to raise the cost to the Kremlin and its supporters of pursuing the invasion of Ukraine.

Khudainatov’s suit asserts that he, not Kerimov, owns the luxury craft, which is longer than a football field, has the requisite helicopter landing pad and is capable of cruising between continents. Khudainatov isn’t under sanctions, his suit says, and he wants the ship back.

The lawsuit includes a September letter from Khoo and his KleptoCapture task force co-director, David Lim, saying they have closed their criminal investigation into Khudainatov. While his lawyers included that letter to strengthen their case, it signals that investigators have concluded Khudainatov isn’t the vessel’s rightful owner.

“The Amadea was targeted by the U.S. government because of its size, opulence and Russian ownership, and not because of any evidence it was involved in wrongdoing,” the suit says. Representatives for Kerimov couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the lawsuit. In the civil forfeiture complaint, prosecutors said various transactions and documents aboard the vessel link it to Kerimov, who they said wanted to make renovations to it, including turning the existing gym into a spa with a massage table, replacing the wine refrigerators with bookshelves and upgrading to bigger toilets and bidets.

The seizure of the Amadea in Fiji was among the first major, visible moves by the KleptoCapture task force, which was set up to confiscate and freeze the luxury yachts, real estate, private jets and other assets of Russian oligarchs with ties to President Vladimir Putin.

KleptoCapture’s aim is both to punish businessmen close to the Kremlin and to use the proceeds of sales of boats and mansions to fund the reconstruction of Ukraine. Justice Department officials held up the Amadea’s seizure as an early success. But the fight over its ownership highlights the challenges law-enforcement agencies across the West face as they move to confiscate assets from rich Russians.

Many Russian billionaires hold their wealth through a maze of opaque shell companies, the beneficial owners of which can include members of the sanctioned oligarch’s family or someone else entirely. That ownership structure often complicates the process of proving that a sanctioned individual is actually linked to an asset. Indeed, Khudainatov’s suit argues that the Amadea isn’t owned by a sanctioned individual and so shouldn’t be frozen.

Another legal hurdle: Being sanctioned isn’t a crime. It merely freezes an individual’s asset and bars the holder from using it. Government agencies must prove an individual broke the law before they can confiscate properties such as yachts as the proceeds of crime.

An FBI agent wrote in an application for a warrant to seize the yacht that it appeared Kerimov purchased the ship in 2021, after he was sanctioned, pointing to various financial transactions. The yacht’s automated information system was turned off on Feb. 24, the document said, almost immediately after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Khudainatov’s lawsuit said information on the yacht’s location has always been available and the warrant application, much of which has been redacted, was “knowingly false and misleading.” Khudainatov said he never sold the yacht to Kerimov and doesn’t know him.

“The DOJ has been parading the Amadea around as the poster child of President Biden’s policy,” Khudainatov’s lawyers Adam Ford and Renée Jarusinsky wrote in the suit, filed in the Southern District of California.

U.S. taxpayers in June 2022 paid to have the Amadea sailed to San Diego, where the lawsuit estimates it has cost the government at least $1 million a month to maintain. The U.S. government is legally obligated to maintain the value of any asset it seizes.

Western governments have held the line and maintained most of the sanctions imposed despite a wave of legal challenges. Most governments have said sanctions will only be lifted once the war in Ukraine is over. Meanwhile, taxpayers are pouring millions of dollars into maintaining yachts and other properties that no one can use.

—Max Colchester contributed to this article.

Write to Sadie Gurman at [email protected].

Justice Department, Russian Billionaire Battle Over Seized Superyacht

Russian gas tycoon's $150 million luxury yacht reappears 2 weeks after switching off its tracking signals, data shows

A Russian oligarch's yacht has reappeared two weeks after switching off tracking signals, data shows.
Yachts turn off their tracking system to hide or create confusion, Spire COO John Lusk told Insider.
The yacht went dark in the Caribbean Sea but turned its trackers back on near the Canary Islands, per data.

A $150 million superyacht belonging to a Russian gas tycoon has reappeared two weeks after it stopped broadcasting its tracking signals, ship-tracking data shows.

Bloomberg was the first to report the data.

Pacific , owned by Novatek CEO and oligarch Leonid Mikhelson, turned off its tracking location on May 8 in the Caribbean Sea after setting sail from Marina Papagayo in Costa Rica three days earlier, according to data by analytics company Spire, cited by Bloomberg.

Data shows yachts' trackers switch on and off

"We're able to track them as long as they have their [automatic identification system (AIS)] transmitters on," Spire COO John Lusk told Insider in an interview. "What we're seeing with the oligarchs' yachts is that they're not always on, they kind of go on and off."

Pacific had switched its tracking signals back on when it reappeared near the Canary Islands with its next destination listed as Port Said in Egypt, Spire's data showed, reported by Bloomberg.

Before the yacht turned off its location transponder in the Caribbean Sea, it reported that its next destination was Nassau in the Bahamas, per the data, cited in Bloomberg. Authorities in the Bahamas have helped the US to seize vessels in the past.

Turning AIS off could mean hiding or creating confusion, Spire says

"The only reason why you would turn off your AIS transponder is if you don't want to be found," Lusk said. Another reason you'd switch off your location is to "sow confusion," he said.

All ships of 300 gross metric tons or more, which travel on international voyages must have AIS transmitters to provide information about their location to authorities and other vessels, the International Maritime Organization's website says.

Lusk said that the yachts' trackers must be turned on when it's arriving or leaving a port but Spire has found that the oligarchs' vessels tend to go dark out in the ocean.

Pacific isn't the first yacht owned by a Russian oligarch to stop broadcasting tracking signals. Vagit Alekperov's $80 million superyacht , Galactica Super Nova, also stopped its tracking signals after leaving Montenegro in early March after sanctions.

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Italy seizes a superyacht tied to Putin.

Italian police boarded the yacht, the Scheherazade, late on Friday, ending what appeared to be preparations to set sail.

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By Gaia Pianigiani

May 6, 2022

After weeks of investigation, Italian authorities announced late Friday evening that they had impounded a nearly $700 million superyacht, saying that its owner had “significant economic and business links” to “prominent elements of the Russian government.” According to U.S. officials, the prominent element is none other than Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin.

In recent days, the Scheherazade, as the enormous luxury ship is named, showed signs of readying to set sail , apparently aiming to leave before the Italian government could seize it. But late Friday, Italian police boarded the yacht — which is 459 feet long, with two helicopter decks, a gym and a swimming pool convertible into a dance floor — and told the crew that the ship was not going anywhere. The Italian finance ministry announced that an investigation had established that the ship’s owner, whom it did not name, was an individual that “threatened peace and international security” and that the individual’s actions amounted to the “undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”

The ministry also specified the urgency to implement the restrictions as the reason to freeze the floating, and extremely expensive, asset.

The Italian authorities, who have actively impounded villas and yachts belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarchs, said in a statement that it had impounded the ship, which is in the dry dock of the port of Marina di Carrara, on the northern coast of Tuscany, even though the person they had identified as its technical owner did not currently appear on a European sanctions list. They added that they could not name the individual until the European Council published the name, and the Italian government committee tasked with protecting the country’s financial security called for the person’s name to be added to the list.

Italian media outlets have for weeks reported that Eduard Khudainatov, a Russian oil tycoon who is currently not under sanctions, owns the yacht. Mr. Khudainatov is considered close to Igor Sechin, a powerful oligarch and close friend of Mr. Putin’s who is currently under sanctions. Italian financial police officials reached on Friday night declined to say who they believed owned the ship.

The captain and the chairman of the Marina di Carrara shipyard, where the Scheherazade underwent refitting and has wintered for two consecutive years, have denied assertions made by U.S. intelligence service, construction workers, crew members and locals in the small port that the vessel unofficially belongs to, and is for the use of, Mr. Putin. They have argued that, on paper, it belonged to a Russian individual who hasn’t been sanctioned by international authorities.

The ship’s captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, told The New York Times recently that its owner was not on the sanctions list, but also denied to have seen or met Mr. Putin on the yacht.

Yet a former Scheherazade crew member told The New York Times that he had never heard of Mr. Khudainatov and confirmed that crew members always believed and discussed the real owner to be Mr. Putin.

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

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That’s Not My Yacht: Here’s How Russian Oligarchs Are Hiding $100 Million Boats

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Russian oil tycoon wins back megayacht LUNA in divorce battle

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By Katia Damborsky 2 April 2019

The saga over the ownership of 115m/377ft superyacht LUNA continues, with Russian billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov winning back ownership of his $436 million megayacht in Dubai .

It is being reported that LUNA has been released by a court in Dubai, after she was impounded in the waters of the UAE as part of a freezing order more than a year ago.

On Wednesday, the Dubai court of appeal declared that the ruling made to impound the yacht was incorrect, and LUNA must be now be released and allowed to leave port. This means that ownership of LUNA now sits with Farkhad Akhmedov.

The freezing order was issued in Britain after Akhmedov did not pay a $594 million divorce settlement to his now-ex-wife Tatiana, claiming the pair were legally divorced in Russia many years earlier.

In August 2018, YachtCharterFleet reported that Tatiana retained ownership of the yacht after a court in Dubai upheld a ruling made by the London High Court.

However, Akhmdeov’s appeal process has ended in his favour, with the Azerbaijan-born oil and gas tycoon holding now holding ownership of the megayacht. A spokesperson for Akhmedov has said "Mr Akhmedov is delighted but not surprised by today's court decision in favour of the Akhmedov family trust.”

Mr Akhmedov is delighted but not surprised by today's court decision in favour of the Akhmedov family trust. Spokesperson for Mr. Akhmedov

Luxury yacht LUNA came into the picture in 2014, when she was bought by the oligarch from friend and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich. She holds the crown for the world’s largest expedition yacht, boasting nine decks after an additional one was added in a £50m refit in 2016.

At 115m, she is home to the largest swimming pool on any superyacht in the world, as well as two helipads, a spa, gym and a dance floor. A beach club, a jacuzzi and a tender garage to house a vast array of water toys are among her superb repertoire of amenities. She was launched in 2010 by Lloyd-Werft.

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superyacht Amadea docked at the Queens Wharf in Lautoka, Fiji

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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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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Dubai court to hear dispute over oligarch's $500m superyacht tied up in UK's costliest divorce

The world's 23rd largest luxurious yacht is central to a russian oil tycoon's divorce payout.

The luxury yacht, Luna, is at the centre of the most expensive divorce settlement in UK legal history. Getty

The latest round of a bitter legal dispute involving a $500 million (Dh1.8 billion) superyacht that is the main contention of a divorce case is due to be heard in Dubai on Sunday.

A freezing order imposed by the London High Court has been placed on the 115-metre yacht Luna under the terms of the divorce settlement between Russian oil tycoon Farkhad Akhmedov and his wife Tatiana Akhmedov.

The hearing, which will appeal to uphold the freezing order by Dubai courts , is part of one of the UK's biggest divorce cases and, is also said to be the costliest.

The vessel, that contains a spa, swimming pool and two helipads, has been held in the dry dock at Port Rashid since February because of the dispute.

Mr Akhmedov, an oil and gas trader, is arguing against an English court judgment granting his wife ownership of the yacht under the terms of an earlier divorce settlement, worth more than $600m.

The yacht is secured in a family trust fund called Straight Establishment, making it difficult for lawyers to determine who the legal owners are.

Mr Akhmedov purchased the vessel from Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich in 2014. It is the 23rd largest luxury yacht in the world.

Lawyers acting on behalf of the oligarch, who is believed to have links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, argue a London court order cannot be applied in Dubai.

Mr Akhmedov and his ex-wife divorced in Moscow in 2000.

In May, an argument at the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts disputed the jurisdiction of the emirate's international commercial court.

DIFC Courts upheld the freezing order imposed by the London High Court in a judgment in March, but in April, Mr Akhmedov won the right to appeal.

Since the judgement, Luna's 50 crew members caught up in the dispute have had their passports returned following an intervention from Nautilus International, an independent trade union representing workers at sea.

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Dubai courts maintain freezing order on Russian oil tycoon's superyacht

Matrimonial battle over $540m Russian superyacht puts DIFC Courts in spotlight

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It’s not obstruction of justice — but it is obstruction of Liberty.

A Russian-born billionaire has been parking his mega-yacht in front of the Statue of Liberty for the past two months — and seafarers say it’s blocking cherished views of the symbol of freedom.

“It’s the people’s statue versus a person’s private boat,” said Roland Lewis, president of the Waterfront Alliance, a nonprofit that works to protect the area’s shores. “That boat is right there obstructing the parade of excursion boats that go out there to visit the statue.”

The yacht, Le Grand Bleu, is owned by Russian-American oil tycoon Eugene Shvidler, who got it as a gift from his friend Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch and pal of President Vladimir Putin. At 370 feet, it is one of the world’s largest private yachts.

The boat first dropped anchor in front of Lady Liberty on April 17 and spent two weeks there before retreating to Gravesend Bay for May. It returned in June and has since spent most of the month ruining tourists’ photos.

“It’s depressing. You don’t see things blocking freedom and justice in America,” said Craig Mahoney, 41, a visitor from Massachusetts trying to view the statue from the Staten Island Ferry.

The spot is a legal anchorage, but harbor regulars say yachts usually stay for just a day or two.

“I’ve been on New York Harbor for 50 years, and I’ve never seen a mega-yacht anchored for such a long period of time,” said Jim Chambers, a ship captain. “My take is they’re just reducing the operating costs by anchoring rather than paying for dockage.”

It reportedly costs thousands of dollars a day to dock at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal.

One sailor spotted a woman sipping coffee on the boat’s swim platform as it faced the statue.

“I was just like, ‘Oh, my God. You have a private patio in front of the Statue of Liberty where your multitude of servants brings you coffee,’ ” the mariner said.

The Coast Guard usually won’t order boats to move unless they are creating an unreasonable obstacle, a spokesman said.

Shvidler was born in Russia and became a US citizen in 1994. Attempts to reach him for comment were not successful.

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The Trading Tycoon Steering Russia's Global Oil Business

Igor Sechin, the boss of Russia’s state oil company and longtime associate of Vladimir Putin, celebrated New Year’s Eve on a yacht anchored off Palm Jumeirah, the man-made Dubai island dotted with oligarch-friendly beachfront villas.

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(Bloomberg) — Igor Sechin, the boss of Russia’s state oil company and longtime associate of Vladimir Putin, celebrated New Year’s Eve on a yacht anchored off Palm Jumeirah, the man-made Dubai island dotted with oligarch-friendly beachfront villas.

The Trading Tycoon Steering Russia's Global Oil Business Back to video

Sechin spent most of 2022 grappling with the impact of the invasion of Ukraine on Russia’s oil exports and finding new customers in the wake of sanctions. His most important guest that night was one of the men who helped him do it: oil trader Murtaza Lakhani, according to four people with direct knowledge of the matter.

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A veteran of crude oil deals from Baghdad to Caracas, the Karachi native made a name for himself navigating some of the most challenging jurisdictions. Now, in alliance with Sechin, he’d helped set up a web of oil traders and shipping firms to steer Russian barrels around the globe amid a nuanced response from the West — sanctions and a price cap intended to restrict revenues alongside prodding from Washington to keep the flow going.

This story is based on interviews with several dozen people familiar with Lakhani’s business empire and the Russian oil trade, including people who’ve recently worked for his companies. They didn’t want to be identified discussing confidential business dealings.

Most of Lakhani’s Russia-related operations take place in countries not implementing the G-7’s price cap on exports, designed to block oil sold above $60 from critical Western-provided services such as shipping insurance. Having worked with Rosneft PJSC for nearly a decade before the invasion, he was also in a good position to help the state oil giant navigate an increasingly complex sanctions regime.

Although Lakhani’s main trading firm, Mercantile & Maritime Group, has done deals with Rosneft in the past, the network formed in the wake of the war in Ukraine relies on recently created companies, many of them in the United Arab Emirates, according to six people with direct knowledge of the matter and the internal assessment of a leading Western intelligence agency seen by Bloomberg News.

The people said that even if he doesn’t own them on paper, Lakhani was involved in setting up the firms and plays a role directing their activities. Prominent among them are Tejarinaft FZCO, Fossil Trading FZCO and Amur II – FZCO, according to the people.

The law firm Schillings, which represents Lakhani, said he has no involvement in any of those companies.

Those firms, which appear in invoice data over the past year as some of the biggest traders of Russian oil, have bought tens of millions of barrels of the country’s crude, loaded them onto ships and sold them to customers in India and China. It’s helped Moscow minimize the impact of sanctions and earned a big windfall for both Rosneft, which pays billions in dividends to the Kremlin, and Lakhani, four of the people said.

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Until now, the White House has prioritized preventing a surge in crude prices rather than penalizing every actor involved in sidestepping the Russian oil restrictions, according to five US officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. More recently, that thinking has shifted, though, as data suggests much more of the trade happening above the cap, the people said.

Through his lawyers, Lakhani said neither he nor any business in which he has an interest is trading Russian oil or oil products. His companies stopped trading or shipping Russian oil in accordance with all applicable sanctions, his lawyers wrote in a letter.

Rosneft and Sechin didn’t respond to written requests for comment.

“Before the war, Rosneft had links with a number of traders in Europe,” said Agathe Duparc, a Geneva-based researcher at Swiss non-governmental organization Public Eye, who closely follows the commodities industry and spoke in general terms. “These days, it’s mostly smaller firms controlled by a few individual traders working with the Kremlin. They change their names and set up in Dubai, making their deals more opaque than ever before.”

Sechin Relationship

Born in Karachi in 1962 but raised in England and Canada, Lakhani catapulted himself into the upper echelon of the commodities trading world with a risky bet several decades ago.

After the first Gulf War he called himself Glencore’s “man in Baghdad.” At the time, Iraq could only sell its crude via a system known as the oil-for-food program, administered by the United Nations. Saddam Hussein found a workaround — later revealed in a UN probe. Lakhani’s role was to move bags of cash for the trading firm, dropping them off at the Iraqi diplomatic mission in Geneva, according to the UN report.

READ: Billion Dollar Broker: How One Man Managed a Nation’s Oil Wealth

That investigation, which never alleged any wrongdoing on Lakhani’s part, acquainted him with a slew of officials in Washington. He’d later build that network out — bringing on grandees to the boards of his firms, including Simon Murray, the former Glencore chairman, and Charles Guthrie, who’d been the most senior general in the British army. Lakhani also became a major donor to the UK’s Conservative Party, records from the Electoral Commission show.

Then, not long after Sechin’s appointment as Rosneft CEO in 2012, the Russian oil boss got in touch with Lakhani, according to four people familiar with the matter.

A former Soviet interpreter and intelligence operative, Sechin served as Putin’s chief of staff at the Saint Petersburg mayor’s office in the 1990s and later rose to deputy prime minister. The Russian official forged a close bond with Lakhani after the trader helped Rosneft expand into Iraq, four of the people said, and he was soon advising the firm on a range of issues.

Lakhani’s word began to carry such weight that Rosneft employees were regularly told to turn to him for guidance rather than handle a transaction in house, according to two of the people and emails seen by Bloomberg.

The trader then appointed Daniel Richard, a lawyer who served on Rosneft Trading’s board, to the board of his flagship firm Mercantile & Maritime, which he founded in 2014. (He’ s since stepped down.)

A Glencore spokesperson declined to comment. Murray, Guthrie and the UK Conservative Party didn’t respond to requests for comment. Richard confirmed his former board role but declined to comment further.

‘Extensive’ Network

Lakhani’s Russia relationship only deepened with time, according to M&M’s financial filings and its own public statements.

A 2021 advertisement that he bought in The Energy Year noted how M&M’s “extensive and high-end trading network is key to its success – boosted by collaborative relations with key players such as Rosneft, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, Shell, Repsol, BP and MOL.”

The firm said in the advert it was the biggest shipper of the Russian state oil giant’s seaborne oil-product exports in 2020.

Spokespeople for Exxon, Total, Repsol and MOL didn’t respond to requests for comment. A representative at Shell said it doesn’t have a relationship with M&M. A BP spokesperson said it’s never traded with Lakhani or his companies.

After Bloomberg’s requests for comment, the old advert removed references to every company except Rosneft, the archival Wayback Machine website shows.

Big Russia Presence in India Energy Summit Signals Stronger Ties

While his Russia business flourished in the years before the Ukraine invasion, Lakhani also burnished his contacts in Washington and London.

After jetting into countries navigating sanctions, such as Venezuela, he made a habit of updating US and UK officials on his discussions, six people familiar with the matter said. As a result, colleagues and confidants said Lakhani remained confident that he could earn significant profits from his businesses in these jurisdictions while avoiding the blow-back of sanctions.

Lakhani’s role behind the scenes became even more relevant this year as White House and US Treasury officials urged trading heavyweights in private meetings to keep Russian oil flows going in an effort to avert a supply shock that could prompt a surge in prices at the pump, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Lakhani and Sechin have grown even closer in the past year, following an exodus of senior Rosneft staff, including Didier Casimiro, Eric Liron and Zeljko Runje, four of the people said.

Lakhani’s network also includes Emirati bankers as well as Indian refiners, Lebanese traders and Russian lawyers, who’ve helped Rosneft forge an alternative payment method that largely bypasses the US dollar, some of the people said. Meantime, Azeri, Greek and UAE shipping interests have been tapped to move Rosneft’s crude, they said.

The state oil giant accounts for nearly half of the output in the world’s No. 2 crude exporting nation, giving the company a particularly significant role in global flows.

READ: Dubai Becomes New Switzerland for Traders of Russian Commodities

Lakhani’s network of firms trading Russian oil is centered on the UAE, according to people familiar with the matter. One of them, Fossil Trading, has a direct link to Rosneft: It also owns Energopole SA, according to Energopole’s website. The Swiss trading unit had been set up by Rosneft following the imposition of US sanctions in 2020 on Rosneft Trading SA. It became part of Fossil in 2022.

Other firms in the network trade large volumes of the state oil giant’s cargoes, according to detailed trade and shipping data compiled by KSE Institute, a part of the Kyiv School of Economics.

Amur handled 120,000 barrels per day of Russian crude in the first half of 2023 while Tejarinaft took 55,000 barrels per day in that period, ranking fifth and eighth overall, excluding the trading units of Russian producers, the trade and shipping data show.

Key Lakhani associates have been involved.

One is Edward Ghazal, a Lebanese oil trader who worked for two years at Lakhani’s M&M in Singapore before becoming a founding director at Tejarinaft in April 2022, according to documents seen by Bloomberg.

A second is Hicham Fizazi, a Moroccan national, who helped Lakhani incorporate multiple firms, some of the people said. He appears in UAE corporate records as a director at both Tejarinaft as well as multiple Amur entities in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Ghazal declined to comment, while Fossil Trading, Energopole, Amur, Tejarinaft, and Fizazi didn’t respond to emails and LinkedIn messages seeking comment. Officials at Dubai Silicon Oasis, the free-trade zone where Fossil Trading, Amur and Tejarinaft are registered, also didn’t return calls and emails seeking comment.

Formed in September 2022, Amur Investments Limited sits on the 12th floor of Al Sila Tower in Abu Dhabi Global Market, the emirate’s international financial center. Its listed shareholder is Dubai-based Amur II FZCO, an offshore crude oil trading firm, which opened a month earlier, according to Emirati corporate records.

On a recent Friday afternoon, Amur’s ADGM office was humming. Just around the corner, an office assistant pointed out an empty desk for a firm that she said was run by the same man. The recently formed special purpose vehicle, called Invest Co Holdings Limited, appears in ADGM records with just one shareholder, director and secretary: Lakhani.

On Oct. 3, Lakhani also set up a new firm in the same tower called Mercantile & Maritime Terminals Ltd., ADGM records show.

Hamad Al Mazrouei, CEO of the ADGM Registration Authority, said the financial center requires its firms to comply fully with all applicable rules and that it keeps close watch of global regulatory developments, including applicable sanctions.

In response to questions posed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a UAE official said the Gulf state is fully aware of its responsibilities in protecting the integrity of the global financial system.

M&M Operations

M&M said it stopped trading Russian-origin oil products in February, according to company filings, and that chief financial officer Sergey Geller, who was previously its head of Russia, resigned as director at the end of July. That coincides with a big increase in trade by the newer Middle Eastern and Asian entities that people familiar with the matter say are linked to Lakhani.

Geller didn’t respond to requests for comment.

People familiar with the trader’s travel say he’s constantly on the go. His luxury real estate portfolio spans Europe, the Middle East and North America. In the UK, he prefers to fly private through airports northwest of London. Until last year, he held a controlling interest in his own yacht broker firm Yachting Partners International Limited, UK corporate records show.

In a given week, Lakhani will meet the leadership in Somalia to ensure the safe passage of crude through the Gulf of Aden, dine at some of London’s most exclusive social clubs and then huddle with Sechin in Moscow to discuss business, three of the people said.

While part of the billionaire’s support staff still works from London, he’s spending more time in the Persian Gulf these days to build out operations from Dubai to Manama, the people said.

READ: Oil Trader Lakhani Buys Fuel Storage Terminal at UAE’s Fujairah

European sanctions have made it riskier for firms involved in the Russia trade to operate from the UK and Rosneft has also demanded greater discretion for intermediaries involved with shipments.

He recently moved some operations away from his long-time office around the corner from the Saatchi Gallery in London’s upmarket Chelsea neighborhood, according to UK corporate records. Lakhani had told people involved in the deal that the country was no longer a suitable jurisdiction for his trading operations.

Washington’s Strategy

Back in Washington, Biden officials say they’re confident the price cap has mostly been successful — maintaining market stability while reducing oil revenues that trickle back to Moscow — but now is a chance to tighten the screws on some traders skirting the rules.

“Coalition compliance and enforcement authorities take allegations of intentional price cap violations extremely seriously and will exercise appropriate authorities to take action where appropriate,” Eric Van Nostrand, US Treasury’s acting Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, wrote in response to questions.

Four US officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Washington has benefited from market intelligence provided by commodity traders active in Russia, with some of the information proving more accurate than the government’s own internal forecasts.

But Lakhani’s ongoing relationship with Sechin, who has been under sanctions since 2014, has prompted concerns from some officials pushing for a maximum pressure strategy by Washington, London and Brussels, according to three of the people.

Meantime, the recent oil rally has presented a conundrum for both policy makers and the intermediaries involved in the Russian trade. With most barrels of the nation’s flagship Urals selling above the $60 cap, the question is how aggressively might Washington crack down on non-compliance, just as tensions in the Middle East also risk sending crude prices higher, four of the people said.

In recent weeks, Lakhani has privately voiced his desire to forge ahead with the Russian oil trade, three of the people said. He’s told some colleagues that the recent market disruptions mark an opportunity to turn his organization into an industry leader, the people said.

—With assistance from Chanyaporn Chanjaroen, Stephanie Baker, Anthony Di Paola, Hemal Savai, Laura Hurst, Francois de Beaupuy, Thomas Gualtieri and Veronika Gulyas.

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