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Ex-Rosneft chief says he owns seized yacht, seeks to block US forfeiture

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Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York Editing by Matthew Lewis

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Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

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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].

One fake owner holds $1 billion worth of Russian yachts, U.S. says

Eduard Khudainatov is not sanctioned, but he and other oligarchs are said to 'hide' assets for those who are

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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 US$1 billion, including the US$700 million Scheherazade, a superyacht linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

One fake owner holds $1 billion worth of Russian yachts, U.S. says Back to video

Court filings in the South Pacific island of Fiji, where the U.S. is trying to seize the US$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.

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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 115-metre 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 fact that Khudainatov is being held out as the owner of two of the largest superyachts on record, both linked to sanctioned individuals, suggests that Khudainatov is being used as a clean, unsanctioned ‘straw owner’ to conceal the true beneficial owners of these vessels,” according to an affidavit by a special agent with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, filed in the Fiji court proceedings. “While Khudainatov is wealthy, there is no reason to believe he has the financial resources to purchase both the Amadea and the Scheherazade, which are collectively worth more than $1 billion.”

That April 22 affidavit, which Bloomberg News has reviewed, reveals previously redacted details from a U.S. seizure warrant for Amadea that was filed in federal court in Washington. It describes interviews with rival yacht brokers, crew members and emails, presented as evidence that Amadea is really owned by the 56-year-old Kerimov, who is worth US$15.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His family held a stake in Polyus, Russia’s largest gold miner. A lawyer for Kerimov and a Polyus spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.  A lawyer for Amadea’s registered owner has written that the U.S. effort to seize the yacht is based on hearsay evidence that doesn’t prove Amadea’s true owner is Kerimov.

The U.S. affidavit cites evidence that Kerimov family members requested long-term changes to Amadea consistent with owning, rather than renting it. They were involved in approving the installation of a new pizza oven, a particular brand of “spa bed” and repositioned electric sockets on the vessel, the affidavit says. It references a document titled “Bosun Handover Notes” discussing Kerimov’s preferences for an upcoming trip, including “a specific gym setup.” Each of Kerimov’s family members was given a codename by crew members, with the tycoon himself referred to as G0.

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“Apparently G0 has two things that have to be immaculate. Stainless and teak,” the document says. “G0 has requested the quickest (jet skis) available, so we will be getting new skis at some point.”

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 and malign activity around the globe, citing his role as a member of the Federation Council, the country’s upper house of parliament.

Born in Dagestan, in Russia’s North Caucasus region, 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, including state-controlled gas giant Gazprom PJSC and the country’s biggest bank, Sberbank. As his fortunes have ballooned and contracted 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 Beyonce.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, an unprecedented round of sanctions targeted an even longer list of Russian billionaires, and the U.S. stepped up enforcement, including a hunt for multimillion-dollar superyachts. Those moves sent vessels like Amadea racing across the globe to jurisdictions not enforcing U.S. sanctions.

The U.S. affidavit alleges that Amadea was sold to Kerimov in 2021 by a yacht brokerage referred to as Company A. Three people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News that the broker is Imperial Yachts, a Monaco-based firm.

According to the affidavit, the broker paid fees in U.S. dollars on behalf of Amadea in 2022 for entry and exit to and from Anguilla in violation of U.S. sanctions against Kerimov and his property. Imperial manages Amadea, including hiring crew, arranging safety inspections and administering running costs, people familiar with the situation say. Annual running costs are between US$25 million and US$30 million, according to the affidavit.

“Company A has a practice of concealing yacht ownership behind nested shell companies and listing a straw, unsanctioned individual as the beneficial owner behind the shell companies in order to conceal the true beneficial owner,” the affidavit says.

Company A conceals yacht ownership behind nested shell companies and a straw owner U.S. affidavit

Simon Clark, a lawyer for Imperial Yachts, said in an email that the broker does not deal with sanctioned people. He said the firm  maintains that Kerimov is not the owner of Amadea, “and as such Imperial Yachts has not violated sanctions in making the payments” described in the April 22 affidavit. Clark said the brokerage is aware of the claims contained in that filing and said Imperial has engaged lawyers “to challenge the assertions.”

Founded by Evgeny Kochman and his sister Julia Stewart in 2005 in Monaco, Imperial has overseen the construction and management of dozens of superyachts. It oversaw the building of the Scheherazade, but Clark said the broker is not that vessel’s operational manager. The 150-metre superyacht is currently being held at a port in Tuscany by Italian authorities because they believe the owner has links to “prominent elements of the Russian government.” Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team reported in March that the Scheherazade was staffed with people who worked for the security agency protecting Putin. The U.S. has taken no public action against the Scheherazade.

The registered owner of the Scheherazade, which is thought to cost about US$700 million, is also Khudainatov through Bielor Asset Ltd., a company set up in 2020 in the Marshall Islands by KPM Consulting Ltd., the U.S. affidavit in Fiji says. KPM Consulting recently told the Trust Company in the Marshall Islands that the beneficial owner is Khudainatov, according to the affidavit, which also says the Scheherazade was “linked” to Putin.

A little over a year after Bielor was established, a long chain of shell companies was set up to organize the ownership of the Amadea. Khudainatov is listed as the ultimate beneficial owner of the yacht through Millemarin Investments Ltd., which in turn is owned by Invest International Finance Ltd., both registered in the British Virgin Islands, according to documents prepared by Millemarin’s lawyer that Bloomberg News has seen. Invest International is owned by Boltenko Trust AG, registered in Zurich, which in turn is trustee of the September Trust, with Khudainatov as the “economic settlor,” according to the documents. The sale was financed through two other offshore companies with Khudainatov as the beneficial owner — one in the Cayman Islands and another in the BVI, the documents say.

Khudainatov is not listed on any recognized ranking of billionaires. He left Rosneft in 2013, reportedly to set up his own oil firm. He’s known to be a close associate of Igor Sechin, Rosneft’s CEO, who is considered a confidant of Putin.

The use of multiple layers of shell companies in offshore jurisdictions can obscure the ultimate beneficiary of assets. Efforts by U.S. authorities to enforce sanctions against associates of Putin are bumping up against this kind of secrecy, making the seizure of some assets a drawn-out affair. Another complication: Russian billionaires are known to operate by unwritten arrangements with others or understandings that often leave no paper trail, which makes proving such agreements in court difficult. A number of Russian tycoons have brought disputes to U.K. courts over unofficial business arrangements that weren’t spelled out in any legal document.

If the Amadea is seized, it would be subject to U.S. forfeiture rules, which have a lower standard of proof than that needed in a criminal case. Filings in the U.S. and Fiji show that U.S. officials have gone to great lengths not only to detain Amadea but also to seize it and try to sail it to U.S. waters. The U.S. filed a seizure warrant application in Washington on April 13 stating that Kerimov and those acting on his behalf had “caused U.S. dollar transactions for Amadea to be sent through U.S. financial institutions” in violation of sanctions. That same day, authorities in Fiji searched the superyacht and found documents detailing various financial transactions. Fiji’s High Court ruled on May 3 that U.S. officials could seize it.

“This yacht seizure should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide — not even in the remotest part of the world,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement on May 5. That day FBI agents and U.S. Marshals boarded the vessel with plans to sail it away.

This yacht seizure should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco

But Feizal Haniff, the lawyer for Millemarin, secured a temporary stay to delay the seizure on May 6. In documents he prepared to submit to the court with his application for the stay, Haniff argued that Fijian law doesn’t allow for U.S. authorities to seize the vessel, only to restrain it at this stage of the case. In the end, he didn’t have to file those documents or others he’d prepared; the court quickly granted the stay without requiring them.

“What the U.S. authorities are saying is that Khudainatov and Mr. Kerimov have a side deal between them,” Haniff wrote in his planned court submissions. “The request by the U.S. authorities relies on hearsay evidence of unidentified individuals to assert that Mr. Kerimov is the beneficial owner of the Amadea.”

Haniff wrote that U.S. authorities’ conduct in Fiji has been “appalling,” saying they offered crew members “obscene amounts of money” to sail Amadea to the U.S. and threatened them with visa cancellations if they didn’t agree. He said U.S. officials have not said where they will take the vessel or how they will maintain or insure it. Amadea has “delicate silk and furniture,” “sensitive carpets” and “gilded metal fittings” that require a temperature- and humidity-controlled environment to avoid “irreversible damage,” he wrote. A Fiji court will consider Haniff’s appeal of the previous seizure ruling on Wednesday.

On board the Amadea, Kerimov is known as G0, his wife as G1, his children as G2 and G3 Amadea crew members

In its investigation, the FBI concluded that in late 2020 or early 2021, Kerimov personally toured Amadea before it was sold around August 2021, the affidavit said. Interviews with crew members detailed trips by Kerimov family members, who were referred to by code names: G1 for his wife, G2 for one of his daughters, G3 for his son.Several Kerimov family members were on Amadea in the Caribbean in January 2022, and Kerimov’s daughter was on the superyacht in France in October 2021, the affidavit says.

In an email dated Feb. 24, 2022 — the day Russia invaded Ukraine — Amadea’s captain described a meeting with one of Kerimov’s daughters about setting the superyacht’s travel agenda for 2022-2023 and purchasing new water sports equipment, according to the affidavit.

That same day, as Russian tanks rolled across Ukraine’s border, Amadea turned off its automated information system, which transmits the ship’s position. It began sailing from the Caribbean, where it was moored off Sint Maarten, through the Panama Canal to Mexico and then on to Fiji, where it arrived around April 12, the affidavit says. Paperwork filed by Amadea indicated it planned to leave two days later for the Philippines, but U.S. authorities believed the next destination would be Vladivostok “or other waters in Russian territory,” according to the affidavit. It said that one crew member’s phone had a text message that read “We’re not going to Russia,” followed by a “shush” emoji.

When Amadea was in Mexico in late March, it filed a customs declaration indicating it was carrying US$102,675 in cash and more than 17,000 in euros (US$17,700). During their search of the vessel, Fijian authorities found documents detailing transactions on behalf of Amadea, including instructions for wire transfers to be paid in U.S. dollars.

This isn’t the first time legal authorities have accused Kerimov of using a frontman. In 2017, he was detained in France on charges of money laundering. He paid 40 million euros in bail and was put under house arrest at his villa in Cap d’Antibes. French prosecutors alleged Kerimov laundered money and evaded taxes by buying four villas on Cap d’Antibes through sham transactions and under-the-table payments using a frontman named Alexander Studhalter, a Swiss businessman who worked with the Russian billionaire for two decades. Kerimov and Studhalter denied wrongdoing. The charges were dropped in 2018, but the French authorities opened a new investigation into tax fraud involving Kerimov in March 2019. That case is ongoing, and lawyers for Kerimov have denied any wrongdoing.

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Putin-Linked Superyacht May Elude Sanctions, by Setting Sail

The Italian police are in a race to finish investigating a $700 million vessel thought to be the Russian president’s — before it’s out of their reach.

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By Gaia Pianigiani and Michael Forsythe

• May 4, 2022

MARINA DI CARRARA, Italy— The Italian police are in a race to finish investigating the ownership of a $700 million superyacht, which U.S. officials say is linked to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, before the vessel is put to sea and able to elude possible sanctions.

They may be running out of time.

After spending months dry-docked in the Tuscan port of Marina di Carrara, the 459-foot vessel, called the Scheherazade, was put into the water again on Tuesday. Crew members milled about topside as water slowly filled the dry dock. The British captain, who had previously spoken to reporters, did not respond to questions.

A former crew member said that the ship could be ready to sail immediately, but that first it was likely to undergo sea trials to check its equipment — common for a ship that has been under repair and, in this case, in port since September.

The Scheherazade has so far avoided the fate of some luxury yachts linked to powerful Russians, which have been seized in the effort by the European Union, Britain and the United States to go after the wealth of oligarchs and officials in Mr. Putin’s inner circle in response to the Ukraine invasion. In March, the Scheherazade’s captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, said the vessel’s owner — whom he didn’t identify — was not on any sanctions list. The Italian media reported that the owner was Eduard Khudainatov, an oil tycoon not currently under sanctions. He is a longtime associate of Igor Sechin, a close Putin ally and chairman of the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft, who is believed to be the owner of a superyacht seized in March.

Mr. Khudainatov’s ownership of the Scheherazade could not be independently verified. If indeed he is the owner, it may be only on paper. His name has also come up in the case of another superyacht, The Associated Press earlier reported: the Amadea , which shares an exterior designer, interior designer and builder with the Scheherazade. On Tuesday, Fiji’s highest court gave the United States permission to seize the $325 million Amadea, which has been held in the South Pacific nation since last month. According to an American official, the vessel’s owner is Suleiman A. Kerimov , a billionaire gold magnate from Russia who has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018; defense lawyers claim the true owner is Mr. Khudainatov, The Associated Press reported.

The former Scheherazade crew member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a nondisclosure agreement that workers on the ship signed, had never heard of Mr. Khudainatov and said it was openly discussed onboard that the Scheherazade’s real owner was Mr. Putin. Soon after The Times first wrote about the Scheherazade in early March, U.S. officials said the yacht had ties to Mr. Putin, without offering specifics. A team of journalists working for the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny obtained a list of crew members and found that many of them were employees of the Russian agency that guards Mr. Putin.

A spokeswoman for Italy’s financial police, which has been leading the national and international inquiry into the Scheherazade’s ownership, said that, should the vessel leave before their investigation concluded, there would be nothing that authorities could do to stop it.

Three port workers said that the authorities appeared to be keeping an eye on the yacht, which has been adjacent to a police station and the Coast Guard while in dry dock; a police helicopter makes daily fly-bys, they said. The workers, who were not authorized to speak to the press, asked that their names not be disclosed.

A retired shipyard employee, Roberto Franchi, said that if the Scheherazade “is floating, it can move relatively quickly.”

It isn’t clear where the ship would go, but the movements of Russian-owned superyachts that have successfully dodged American, European Union or British sanctions offer some possibilities. Two vessels that belong to the billionaire Roman Abramovich, who faces British and E.U. sanctions, have been in Turkish waters for weeks. Others have loitered in the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean. The Nord, owned by the billionaire Alexei Mordashov, went much farther afield, arriving at the Russian Pacific port of Vladivostok at the end of March, according to data from Marine Traffic, which tracks vessels.

Those superyachts escaped the fate of the Amadea and a growing list of others, including Sailing Yacht A, owned by the billionaire Andrey Melnichenko and impounded by the Italian police in March; and the Crescent, sister ship of the Scheherazade, impounded in Spain. Reuters, citing a person in the Spanish police, reported that the Crescent was believed to belong to Mr. Sechin.

Here in Marina di Carrara, port workers and other people with access to the shipyard saw a flurry of activity by the Scheherazade’s crew: removing the white plastic screens that protected the decks during the repairs, cleaning the ship, loading supplies. Last week, they said, fuel trucks filled the vessel’s enormous tanks, while crew members carefully moved wrapped cases onboard.

As the sun set on Tuesday, a young couple had their aperitivo drinks at a bar overlooking the shipyard.

“Look, Putin’s yacht is still here,” Massimo Giovi, a 25-year old student, joked. “If that goes, it will change the skyline here.”

Julian Barnes contributed reporting.

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

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

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International Edition

The US is trying to seize a yacht it says belongs to a sanctioned Russian oligarch but defence lawyers say he's not the owner

• The US is trying to seize a yacht it claims belongs to sanctioned oligarch Suleyman Kerimov.
• But Millemarin Investments, its registered owner, says the beneficial owner is Eduard Khudainatov.
• Kerimov is said to be close to the Kremlin and faces accusations of money laundering.

The US is trying to seize a yacht in Fiji that it claims belongs to a sanctioned Russian oligarch, but defence lawyers say it's owned by someone else.

US authorities say the superyacht, the Amadea, is beneficially owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleyman Kerimov , spokesperson for Fiji's director of public prosecutions (DPP) told Insider. Kerimov is said to be close to the Kremlin and faces accusations of money laundering and failing to pay taxes. 

But defense lawyers have claimed in court that the vessel is owned by Eduard Khudainatov, former chairman and CEO of Kremlin-controlled energy giant Rosneft, per a report by  AP . Khudainatov hasn't been sanctioned.

The Amadea is barred from leaving Fiji's waters under a restraining order granted by the country's high court in Suva on April 19, one week after it arrived there from Mexico .

The Amadea is yet another example of the difficulties in determining the beneficial owner of a vessel , which can be different to the registered owner. The vessel is registered in the Cayman Islands and owned by Cayman Islands-based Millemarin Investments, AP reported. Millemarin's lawyers claimed in court that the company is the vessel's legal owner and is linked to Khudainatov, the beneficial owner, per AP.

The high court has ordered Fijian prosecutors to add Millemarin as a respondent in the case alongside Kerimov, per AP.

"The ultimate issue of the ownership will likely be decided in the US court if the US warrant is registered," the DPP spokesperson said, adding that a judge was set to rule on whether the Fiji High Court could register the US' warrant to seize the vessel on May 3.

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As well as the US's warrant to seize the vessel, Fiji authorities are looking into allegations of money laundering and possible breaches of Fiji's Exclusive Economic Zone related to the vessel, per the Fijian Broadcasting Corporation . Police said that the Amadea had arrived in Fiji without customs clearance, Reuters previously reported .

Millemarin's lawyers said there was no evidence that the Amadea was the result of criminal proceedings, per the FBC .

Millemarin's lawyers, the US Treasury, the US Department of Justice, and the US Embassy in Fiji did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Kerimov is one of Putin's 'inner circle of oligarchs'

As well as targeting Russian businesses, finances, and industry, the West has been sanctioning Russian elites to put pressure on President Vladimir Putin to stop his invasion of Ukraine.

Kerimov, a member of the Russian Federation Council, was sanctioned by the  EU  and  UK on March 15. The EU said that Kerimov is "a member of the inner circle of oligarchs" close to Putin. It also said he was among those who met the Russian president at the Kremlin in late February to discuss Western sanctions. 

Kerimov had already been  sanctioned by the US in 2018 , which said he had been accused of money laundering in France and failing to pay $432 million in taxes on villas.

Kerimov is worth around $14.3 billion, per Bloomberg estimates.  He  owns Nafta Moscow , a financial and industrial group in Russia. His family owns a controlling stake  in Polyus Gold, which  claims to be Russia's biggest gold producer .

The Amadea is close to 350 feet long and has lodgings for 16 guests across eight cabins. It was built by German yacht makers Lürssen and amenities include a gym, beauty salon, bar, and glass elevator. It also has an infinity pool, another pool on the owner's private terrace, a jacuzzi , and a helipad.

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‘Mysterious’: the $700m superyacht in Italy some say belongs to Putin

Activists linked to Alexei Navalny believe the Scheherazade is owned by the Russian president

F or several months, the mysterious 140-metre-long, six-floor superyacht has towered over the smaller boats in the shipyard in Marina di Carrara, a town on Italy’s Tuscan coast, arousing chatter among its people over the identity of its wealthy owner.

“It’s the largest yacht I’ve ever seen here,” said Suzy Dimitrova, who owns a boat in the marina. “There are people cleaning it all the time. The last time I saw it leave [the shipyard] was last year. We’re all wondering who the owner is.”

The Scheherazade, said to be worth $700m (£528m), is under investigation by Italian authorities for potential links to sanctioned Russians. And activists working with the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny are in no doubt that the yacht is owned by the Russian president Vladimir Putin .

On Monday, investigative journalist Maria Pevchikh and anti-corruption activist Georgy Alburov said that all crew members, obtained from a list dating December 2020, were Russian, apart from the captain. In a video published on YouTube, they claimed that some of the yacht’s staff worked for the Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO), an agency that manages security for high-ranking officials including Putin.

The activists, who have urged Italian authorities to seize the yacht, said this information proves it belongs to Putin. “They are Russian state employees, military personnel, and they regularly travel to Italy as a group to work on the mysterious yacht,” Pevchikh wrote on Twitter.

The interior of the vessel was described as being equipped with a spa, swimming pools, two helipads, a wood-burning fireplace and a pool table designed to tilt so as to reduce the impact of the waves.

In an address to the Italian parliament on Tuesday, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged Italy to seize the yacht, adding that Putin and his wealthy supporters often holidayed in Italy and should have their assets blocked.

“Don’t be a resort for murderers,” he said. “Lock all their real estate, accounts and yachts – from the Scheherazade to the smallest ones.”

Putin’s last official visit to Italy was in 2019, at the invitation of the former prime minister, Giuseppe Conte. He also held talks with Pope Francis at the Vatican during the visit.

Marina di Carrara is close to Forte dei Marmi, a favourite holiday destination for Russian oligarchs, many of whom have bought villas and beach resorts.

In early March, Italian police seized a yacht owned by Alexei Mordashov, the richest man in Russia before being blacklisted by the European Union, and another owned by Gennady Timchenko, a billionaire with close ties to Putin , in the Ligurian port of Imperia.

The yacht can only be seen through a fence, where it is continuing to undergo a refit, scheduled to be completed next year, in a shipyard owned by The Italian Sea Group, a company that refits and builds luxury yachts.

The mystery over its owner gathered momentum in early March, when finance police in Carrara boarded the yacht as EU sanctions against Russian oligarchs kicked in over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine .

The police seized ownership documents from the yacht’s British captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce. At the time, US officials told the New York Times that they were also investigating whether the yacht belonged to Putin.

The Italian Sea Group said in a statement that it was continuing to work on the ship’s €6m (£5m) refit and maintenance despite the EU’s sanctions and that, according to documents in its possession, the vessel “is not attributable to the property of the Russian president Vladimir Putin”, and neither is it owned by a Russian on the sanction list.

A source at the finance police unit in Carrara said that they are now aware who the owner is and will soon make an announcement.

An investigation by La Stampa newspaper earlier this month had linked the vessel to Eduard Yurievich Khudainatov, the former president of the Russian state oil firm Rosneft, via a shell company registered in the Marshall Islands.

But Italian police are reportedly certain that Khudainatov is not the yacht’s real owner. “He seems to be a man connected with Putin’s inner circle but not so rich as to own a yacht like the Scheherazade,” said Jacopo Iacoboni, the journalist for La Stampa who carried out the investigation.

Until the Italian police reveal their findings, the people of Marina di Carrara continue to ponder, even if its presence causes concern. “Putin is the presumed owner, and looking at it now causes me a lot of anxiety because of what he is doing in Ukraine,” said Maria Cristina.

However, there are no signs of protests being planned. “There are always a lot of words, but little action here,” said Dimitrova.

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Italy Freezes Scheherazade Superyacht Linked To Vladimir Putin

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The Scheherazade yacht in the Italian port of Marina di Carrara, Italy.

Updated on May 7.

Italian authorities froze the Scheherazade superyacht—believed to be owned by Russian president Vladimir Putin—in the port of Marina di Carrara on Friday. In a press release announcing the freezing , the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance stated that an investigation conducted by Italian financial police found that the ship’s beneficial owner had "significant economic and business ties" to high-ranking people in the Russian government and individuals sanctioned by the European Union.

Still, it’s a bit murky who ultimately owns the 459-foot yacht, which has been under investigation for months while it remained in a drydock in Marina di Carrara. The ship left the drydock and re-entered the waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea on Tuesday, sparking fears that it may try to flee before the Italian investigation concluded. Valued at $510 million by yacht valuation experts VesselsValue, Scheherazade is registered in the Cayman Islands and owned by Bielor Asset Limited, a company in the Marshall Islands.

An investigation by Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation in late March tied the Scheherazade to Putin, finding that all of the ship's crew members—except for the captain—are Russian citizens and many are employed by the Federal Protective Service, the agency in charge of Putin’s personal protection. Earlier in March, Italian newspaper La Stampa reported that the ship’s beneficial owner was Eduard Khudainatov, the former CEO of Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft and a close ally of Putin and Rosneft's longtime executive, Igor Sechin . A former crew member of the Scheherazade told the New York Times that they had never heard of Mr. Khudainatov and that it was “openly discussed onboard that Scheherazade ’s real owner was Putin.” U.S. officials also told the newspaper that they believed the yacht had ties to Putin.

In the press release announcing the freezing, the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance stated that its Financial Security Committee had proposed to the European Council that it should include Scheherazade ’s beneficial owner—believed to be Khudainatov—in the sanctions list. Khudainatov has also been identified as a proxy owner for another yacht, the 348-foot, $300 million Amadea , which the U.S. Department of Justice says is actually owned by sanctioned oligarch Suleiman Kerimov . ( Amadea was seized by Fijian authorities at the request of the U.S. government on Thursday.)

Scheherazade was built by German shipyard Lürssen in 2020 and features a helicopter pad, beauty salon , movie theater, spa and gym. The yacht's construction was managed by Monaco-based Imperial Yachts, a company that a yacht industry source called “Putin’s people when it comes to yachts.” A spokesperson for Imperial told Forbes that the firm acted as the construction manager for Scheherazade but does not currently manage the yacht. “Imperial Yachts does not have clients who are sanctioned individuals or entities,” they added.

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The World's First Hydrogen-Powered Superyacht Has a $644 Million Price Tag

By Nick Mafi

Superyachts seemed to be among the last modes of (luxe) transportation to bend toward the growing consumer demand for eco-friendly engine designs. But if news from last week’s Monaco Yacht Show served as a bellwether, the industry meant to cater to the wealthiest among us made a progressive splash with the unveiling of Aqua, the world's first hydrogen-powered superyacht.

Designed by the Dutch firm Sinot Yacht & Architecture Design, Aqua is a nearly 400-foot-long vessel that's run entirely by a renewable energy source. "Water is the eternal fuel of life, the life-sustaining force that makes planet Earth habitable," says Sander Sinot, founder of the firm that bears his name. "Water is soft, yet at the same time it cuts through hard rocks." It was this appreciation of water that helped the firm find balance between the natural world and the technological. The propulsion system is made up of two 28-ton vacuumed tanks that each contain liquified hydrogen which are stored at -423 degrees Fahrenheit. Along with being eco-friendly, hydrogen-based energy means for a quieter experience aboard the ship in comparison to traditional engines. That said, there will be backup diesel generators handy should the captain ever need them.

The infinity pool aboard AQUA. 

There was much confusion on Monday if there was already a buyer who had paid the hefty $644 million price tag. Reports spread throughout the internet that billionaire Bill Gates had purchased the superyacht, rumors that proved to be false. Yet readers couldn't be blamed for believing such reports, as images show Aqua to include its own infinity pool, helipad, spa, and gym—amenities meant to attract billionaires such as Gates.

An aerial view of the superyacht shows how close passengers can get to the water, as well as the cascading design of the infinity pool.

Sinot and his team designed the vessel to safely bring passengers as close to the water as possible. "Water is relaxation; it makes us calmer and more creative," Sinot comments. "We wanted to provide those on board with the closest possible proximity to the water. The aft deck features an innovative series of platforms cascading down towards the sea, while a large swim platform allows all passengers to enjoy the optimal experience of accessing the water at sea level."

One of the bedrooms inside of Aqua shows a minimalist aesthetic. 

Aqua can reach speeds of up to 19.5 mph and features enough room for 14 guests and 31 crew members. The firm plans to complete the vessel by 2024.

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