Court to rule on whether U.S. can seize Russian yacht
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — At Lautoka harbor in the heart of Fiji’s sugar cane region, five U.S. federal agents boarded the Russian-owned Amadea, a luxurious superyacht the length of a football field.
“They want to take 20 crew and sail east!” the ship’s captain wrote in a frantic May 5 WhatsApp message to lawyer Feizal Haniff, who represents the company that legally owns the superyacht.
“When?” Haniff wrote back, court documents show. “Please hold. Please hold. Can you hold. I need a judge. I am dialing everyone.”
The case highlights the thorny legal ground the U.S. is finding itself on as it tries to seize assets of Russian oligarchs around the world. Those intentions are welcomed by many governments and citizens who oppose the war in Ukraine, but some actions are raising questions about how far U.S. jurisdiction extends.
In Fiji, the agents boarded the vessel after an initial legal victory in which a lower Fijian court granted the registration of a U.S. seizure warrant.
In Washington, the Justice Department rushed out a media release. “$300 Million Yacht of Sanctioned Russian Oligarch Suleiman Kerimov Seized by Fiji at Request of United States,” it read.
But Haniff argued the U.S. had jumped the gun. Whatever evidence or suspicions the FBI had about the ship, Haniff argued, they didn’t have the right to take control of it, much less sail it away.
That’s because prior to the agents boarding the ship, Haniff had already filed two legal appeals, arguing that the real owner was a different wealthy Russian — a man who didn’t face sanctions — and that the U.S. had no jurisdiction under Fiji’s mutual assistance laws to seize the vessel, at least until a court sorted out who really owned the Amadea.
Fiji’s Court of Appeal decided to take up the case, and heard arguments Wednesday. The Amadea is now back under the watchful eye of the Fijian police.
The FBI had linked the Amadea to the Kerimov family through their alleged use of code names while aboard and the purchase of items like a pizza oven and a spa bed. The ship became a target of Task Force Klepto Capture, launched in March to seize Russian oligarchs’ assets to pressure Russia to end the war.
Court documents show the company Haniff represents, Millemarin Investments, is the legal owner of the Cayman Islands-flagged superyacht and that Millemarin is owned by Eduard Khudainatov, a former chairman and chief executive of Rosneft, the state-controlled Russian oil and gas company. Khudainatov, who doesn’t face sanctions, filed an affidavit to say he owns the Amadea.
In court documents, the FBI claims Kerimov, an economist and former Russian politician, is the real owner of the Amadea, which is 348 feet long and features a live lobster tank, a handpainted piano, a swimming pool and a large helipad.