`Straw owner' trying to shield $1 billion worth of Russian yachts from seizure, U.S. says

HONOLULU — In the race to seize assets tied to sanctioned Russian billionaires, U.S. authorities are alleging that a Russian tycoon acted as the “straw owner” of two yachts worth more than $1 billion, including the $700-million Scheherazade, a superyacht linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Court filings in the South Pacific island of Fiji, where the U.S. is trying to seize the $325-million yacht Amadea, reveal what U.S. officials allege is a nest of offshore shell companies that were set up with the help of a yacht broker to conceal the true owners of both vessels — an allegation that lawyers for the listed owner and the broker dispute.

A hearing is scheduled for Wednesday in Fiji on the fate of Amadea.

The layers of companies and trusts, stretching from the Marshall Islands to Switzerland, indicate the beneficial owner of both yachts is the former president of state-controlled Rosneft OJSC, Eduard Khudainatov, according to the documents.

Khudainatov doesn't appear on any sanctions lists. But the U.S. alleges the “true beneficial owner” of the 348-foot Amadea, which features a helipad, a mosaic-tiled pool and a lobster tank, is Russian gold billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, who was first sanctioned by Washington in 2018.

The U.S. cites evidence that Kerimov family members requested long-term changes to Amadea consistent with owning, rather than renting it.

In sanctioning Kerimov in 2018, the U.S. said he was part of a group of oligarchs who profit from the Russian government through corruption.

Kerimov got his start as an economist before building up stakes in a bank, an airline and an oil trading company in the country's chaotic transformation in the late 1990s. He made his fortune under Putin trading shares of the country's biggest and most politically sensitive companies.

Over the past 20 years, Kerimov earned a reputation as a kind of Jay Gatsby of Putin's Russia because of his penchant for throwing glitzy parties on the Riviera, including a 2008 bash featuring Beyoncé.