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Excessive maintenance bill justifies auction of seized oligarch yacht

The U.S. government is spending more than $7 million a year to maintain the 'Amadea' which it seized from a Russian oligarch in 2022 and urged a judge to let it auction the vessel. Authorities in Fiji seized the yacht under a warrant alleging it was owned by Suleiman Kerimov, who has been placed under sanctions by the United States. Efforts to auction the yacht were being challenged by Eduard Khudainatov, who claimed he owns the yacht and says it cannot be forfeited because he has not been hit with sanctions. U.S. prosecutors stated that the excessive maintenance bill justified an auction.

USA want to expropriate seized oligarch yacht

The United States wants to permanently expropriate the 'Amadea', which is owned by the Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov. The American prosecutor Damian Williams has filed the forfeiture order. Kerimov was sanctioned in 2018 because of his ties to the Russian dictator Putin. In 2021, he made a deal to buy the yacht through a series of corporate entities, in order to obscure who owned the ship. He also violated the imposed sanctions by having more than one million dollars worth of maintenance work done on the ship. The yacht was initially seized by Fijian authorities after crossing the Pacific Ocean when Russia invaded the Ukraine. US government officials believed the ship was headed to Vladivostok, a Russian port near North Korea, when it was seized in Fiji. The ship was subsequently seized by the US Department of Justice and transferred to California, where it remains chained. Another Russian oligarch, Eduard Khudaynatov, claims to be the owner of the yacht and to get the ship back. His lawyers submitted documents to the Fijian court to this effect and have also filed a lawsuit in the US to get the superyacht back.

US law enforcement has seized what could be a Fabergé egg

The US law enforcement has seized what they believed could be a priceless Fabergé egg from the 'Amadea', owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco revealed the possible discovery of the jeweled egg at the Aspen Security Forum. Monaco said the jeweled egg, if authentic, could be one of the few undiscovered pieces in the world and potentially worth millions. Fabergé eggs are jewel-encrusted decorative pieces. From 1855 to 1916, approximately 50 Imperial Easter eggs were made for the Russian imperial family. The opulent works were commissioned by the Russian House of Romanov and were often sized between three and five inches. The ornamental eggs have been sold for millions of dollars but remain ultra-rare finds. They have also popped up in the most unlikely places — like one that showed up at a US flea market in 2014 and was estimated to be worth around $33 million at the time. The FBI says it has found crucial evidence on board the yacht to incriminate Kerimov in US crimes like money laundering.