Authorities in Fiji have seized a superyacht owned by Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov at the request of the United States over alleged ties to corruption, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Thursday.
The 348-foot luxury vessel, the Amadea—worth more than $300 million—was impounded based on probable cause of violating U.S. law, money laundering, and conspiracy, the DOJ said in a May 5 statement.
“Upon receipt of a mutual legal assistance request from the United States, Fijian authorities executed the request, obtaining a domestic seizure warrant from a Fijian court,” the release states.
Kerimov was sanctioned by the United States in 2014 and 2018 in response to Russia’s actions in Syria and Ukraine. The billionaire is part of a group of Russian oligarchs who “profit from the Russian government through corruption and its malign activity around the globe,” the department said.
According to court documents, Kerimov owned the Amadea after his designation, and for personal benefits “caused U.S. dollar transactions to be routed through U.S. financial institutions for the support and maintenance” of the superyacht.
“Last month, I warned that the [DOJ] had its eyes on every yacht purchased with dirty money,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “This yacht seizure should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide—not even in the remotest part of the world.”
A DOJ-formed task force named “KleptoCapture” has focused on seizing yachts and other luxury assets to put the finances of Russian oligarchs under strain in a bid to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.
Andrew Adams, the director of KleptoCapture, said Thursday’s seizure nearly 8,000 miles from Washington symbolizes the reach and effectiveness of the newly formed task force.
“This Task Force will continue to bring to bear every resource available in this unprecedented, multinational series of enforcement actions against the Russian regime and its enablers,” said Adams.
Kerimov has also been sanctioned by the EU, which announced in early April it had confiscated $32 billion worth of assets linked to blacklisted Russian and Belarusian individuals. The assets include yachts, mansions, bank accounts, helicopters, and artworks.
Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said in an interview on Thursday that the European Union (EU) should sell confiscated Russian assets and use the proceeds to rebuild Ukraine.
“Personally, I am absolutely convinced that this is extremely important not only to freeze assets, but also to make possible to confiscate it, to make it available for the rebuilding of the country [Ukraine],” Michel told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency, AFP reported.
Michel’s latest remark comes about one week after President Joe Biden proposed oligarchs’ seized luxury assets should be sold and the money from their sale should be sent directly to Ukraine to “remedy the harm Russia caused.”
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s chief spokesman, described Biden’s suggestion to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine as “outrageous” and a “violation of all legal norms.”
“This, of course, is a very dangerous precedent, it is an outrageous distortion of any legal norms, a violation of all legal concepts in general. This is nothing but a simple expropriation of private property and any attempt to pseudo-legitimize this expropriation,” said Peskov, AA reported.
