Insiders still have no idea what's going to happen to Russian oligarchs' seized superyachts

  • It's been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, leading to sanctions against Russian oligarchs.
  • Many of their superyachts were seized or frozen , leading industry insiders to question their fate.
  • The yachts, some of which are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, remain in a state of limbo.

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More than two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the boating world still doesn't have many answers about what's going on with the very large, expensive elephants in the sea: oligarchs' superyachts .

The war prompted many governments to enact sanctions against Russia's richest , including seizing their superyachts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But it's unclear whether they can be sold or who'd buy them, leaving ports peppered with massive boats stuck in a floating limbo.

"The Russian problem, it's becoming a bigger and bigger and bigger problem," one luxury yacht broker told Business Insider at the Palm Beach International Boat Show last week. Like many others, he requested not to be named, given the sensitive nature of the matter at hand and the generally discreet nature of the industry.

Russia has been a massive player in the massive boat market for a long time. In August 2021 — about six months before Russia's Ukraine invasion — Russians owned the second-largest share of yachts over 40 meters in length, according to a report from the industry publication SuperYacht Times.

They were responsible for 16% of new build superyacht purchases in the decade preceding the report and are known for splashing out on extravagant interiors and unique features. (One builder BI spoke to recalled a mandate from an oligarch for a large safe in the owner's cabin in which he could keep his rifles. The builder later learned he'd use them to skeet shoot on deck.)

But those sales have now screeched to a halt as oligarchs get hit by international sanctions. At least a dozen superyachts — worth well over $1 billion combined — have been affected.

And no one is quite sure what will happen to them.

Russia's sanctioned superyachts are hard to buy and sell

The first problem is that many of the yachts are "frozen" — not seized. That means that although the Russian owners can't operate or collect them, they don't technically belong to an overseas government, so they can't be sold without special permission.

Earlier this month, federal prosecutors petitioned a judge asking for consent to sell the Amadea, the 106-meter superyacht that has been docked in San Diego and costs the US as much as $922,000 a month to maintain.

"I've had some inquiries, but all you can tell them is we don't know the outcome yet" of the case, another superyacht broker told BI at the yacht show.

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And despite the broker's claim of interest in yachts like Amadea , most ultrarich — or at least their brokers — don't want to go near the vessels with a ten-foot pole, even if the government does get legal permission to sell them.

"How does it look if you bought a Russian boat?" Julia Simpson, a broker at Thompson of Monaco, said. "Even if it's completely legal and normal, there are too many things on the line," she said, like how the original owner got their money and whether that could make the new buyer look bad.

There are also possible legal implications, as it's hard for the government to prove who actually owns the yachts.

"Oligarchs typically structure their ownership of these high-value assets through a web of offshore shell companies and trusts that is designed to conceal the true owner," Joshua Naftalis, a former federal prosecutor who now works for Pallas Partners, told BI.

And if the government does assume ownership, it's highly dependent on court orders. For example, a Russian whose yacht had been seized by the French government regained access to his boat after winning a legal battle in 2022.

"It's a very difficult process to buy them," Ralph Dazert, the head of intelligence at SuperYacht Times, told BI. "There is a high risk of the former (Russian) owner suing you to get the boat back."

He pointed to the Alfa Nero, the 82-meter yacht that Eric Schmidt planned to purchase for $67 million last year in an auction put on by Antigua and Barbuda. He backed out after various parties tried to block the sale, likely deeming it not worth the legal headache.

"When the reason for sanctioning goes away, which it may do," the Russian owners will try to get their boats back , Simpson said. After all, "the government's not going to pay them."'

That said, if sanctions are dropped, the yachts will be worth much less than when they were seized, as a boat not in use deteriorates much faster than one sailing the seas.

"Those yachts need to be used to be kept in shape, kept in condition," the second broker said. "​​Just having them sit at the dock with a temporary crew on board is not good for the boats."

And the sanctioned Russians who have managed to maintain control of their superyachts won't have an easy time offloading them in the future.

Americans who try to do business with sanctioned oligarchs would have a number of hoops to jump through — like finding a bank to process the purchase, which would be next to impossible. If somehow they did and the government caught wind, they'd face hefty penalties and the transaction would be void.

So Russia's richest have found themselves "stuck" sailing in a select few countries that will let them, like the Maldives, Montenegro, and Dubai.

Watch: Video of Russian naval ship explosion shows a much-needed win for Ukraine

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Russian oligarch's yacht costs U.S. taxpayers close to $1 million a month

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A mega-yacht seized by U.S. authorities from a Russian oligarch is costing the government nearly $1 million a month to maintain, according to new court filings.

The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking permission to sell a 348-foot yacht called Amadea, which it seized in 2022, alleging that it was owned by sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov. The government said it wants to sell the $230 million yacht due to the “excessive costs” of maintenance and crew, which it said could total $922,000 a month.

“It is excessive for taxpayers to pay nearly a million dollars per month to maintain the Amadea when these expenses could be reduced to zero through [a] sale,” according to a court filing by U.S. prosecutors on Friday.

The monthly charges for Amadea, which is now docked in San Diego, California, include $600,000 per month in running costs: $360,000 for the crew; $75,000 for fuel; and $165,000 for maintenance, waste removal, food and other expenses. They also include $144,000 in monthly pro-rata insurance costs and special charges including dry-docking fees, at $178,000, bringing the total to $922,000, according to the filings.

The battle over Amadea and the costs to the government highlight the financial and legal challenges of seizing and selling assets owned by Russian oligarchs after the country’s invasion of Ukraine. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said last week that the European Union should use profits from more than $200 billion of frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort.

Her comments echoed government calls in the spring of 2022 to freeze the yachts, private jets and mansions of Russian billionaires in hopes of putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and raising money for the war effort.

Yet, nearly two years later, the legal process for proving ownership of the Russian assets and selling them has proven to be far more time-consuming and costly. In London, Russian billionaire Eugene Shvidler has waged a court battle over his private jets that were impounded, and Sergei Naumenko has been appealing the detention of his superyacht Phi.

The battle over Amadea began in April 2022, when it was seized in Fiji at the request of the U.S. government, according to the court filings.

Though the U.S. alleges that the yacht is owned by Kerimov, who made his fortune in mining, attorneys for Eduard Khudainatov, an ex-Rosneft CEO who has not been sanctioned, say he owns the yacht, and have sought to take back possession of the vessel.

In court filings, Khudainatov’s attorneys have objected to the U.S. government’s efforts to sell the yacht, saying a rushed sale could lead to a distressed sale price and that the maintenance costs are minor relative to the potential sale value.

Khudainatov’s attorneys refuse to pay the ongoing maintenance costs as long as the government pursues a sale and forfeiture. However, they say their client will reimburse the U.S. government for the more than $20 million already spent to maintain the yacht if it’s returned to its proper owner.

In court papers, the government says Kerimov disguised his ownership of Amadea through a series of shell companies and other owners. They say emails between crew members show Kerimov “was the beneficial owner of the yacht, irrespective of the titleholder of the vessel.”

The emails show that Kerimov and his family ordered several interior improvements of the yacht, including a new pizza oven and spa, and that between 2021 and 2022, when the boat was seized, “there were no guest trips on the Amadea that did not include either Kerimov or his family members,” according to the court filings.

The government also says Kerimov has been trying to sell Amadea for years, so a sale would be in keeping with his intent.

“This is not a situation in which a court would be ordering sale of a precious heirloom that a claimant desperately wishes to keep for sentimental reasons,” the government said in filings.

Even if Amadea were sold quickly, the proceeds wouldn’t automatically go to the government. Under law, the money would be held while Khudainatov and the government continue their battle in court over the ownership and forfeiture.

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Seized Russian Yachts May Soon Be on the Auction Block

Yachts don’t come cheap, even when you seize them—and that could mean the oligarchs’ favorite toys could end up with “for sale” signs.

Scott Bixby

Scott Bixby

russian yachts seized for sale

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty

The Department of Justice made a splash with the announcement that the task force created to seize the assets of Russia’s richest citizens had captured its first major acquisition : Tango, the 255-foot megayacht owned by sanctioned oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

But the economics of keeping a vessel worth an estimated $90 million afloat as the Justice Department pursues charges of bank fraud, money laundering, and sanctions violations against Vekselberg—and the legal particulars of seizing ill-gotten gains by alleged criminals—means that Tango could soon end up on the chopping block in order to pay off the phenomenal carrying costs for a vessel with room for 14 guests and 22 crewmembers.

“If the maintenance and storage become prohibitively expensive, the government can go to the court and say, ‘we want to sell this and reduce it to cash,’” said Stefan Cassella, a former federal prosecutor and an expert on asset forfeiture and money laundering law. Vekselberg “wouldn’t be able to object to the government selling it at auction for fair market value and turning it into a liquid asset. And that happens a lot.”

Last month, following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine, President Joe Biden vowed in his State of the Union address to join European allies to find and seize the yachts, luxury apartments, and private jets of billionaire oligarchs close to the Kremlin.

“We are coming for your ill-begotten gains,” Biden said at the time.

The seizure of Tango is the first such capture of luxury assets by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Andrew Adams, director of the Department of Justice’s Task Force KleptoCapture, said upon the yacht’s seizure. But is far from the last.

“Today’s seizure of Viktor Vekselberg’s yacht, the Tango, in Spain is the result of an unprecedented multinational effort to enforce U.S. sanctions targeting those elites who have enabled Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine,” Adams said at the time . “For those who have tied their fortunes to a brutal and lawless regime, today’s action is a message that those nations dedicated to the rule of law are equally dedicated to separating the oligarchs from their tainted luxuries. This seizure is only the beginning of the Task Force’s work in this global effort to punish those who have and continue to support tyranny for financial gain.”

Federal law enforcement officials with knowledge of the task force’s work, however, told The Daily Beast that the impressiveness of the haul is as much a complication as it is an accomplishment. The seizure of physical property suspected of being related to criminal enterprise—cars, homes, and jewels—is often a little more manageable than a 255-foot megayacht.

“A Bugatti can be kept under a tarp in a garage until a case is concluded,” one federal law enforcement official told The Daily Beast. “The same can’t be said of a yacht that’s the length of a football field.”

Tango, which according to Superyacht Times currently clocks in as the 189th-longest yacht in the world and features a private owner’s deck, a contra-flow swimming pool, an outdoor cinema and a massage parlor, is far from the most extravagant of the yachts that have been seized by international authorities since the implementation of sanctions against Kremlin-allied oligarchs following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Dilbar, the world’s largest yacht by gross tonnage, was seized earlier this month by Germany. It features two helipads and the largest swimming pool yet installed on a yacht.

But even the comparatively unpretentious Tango will cost a small fortune to keep afloat. In the yachting world, the rule of thumb for the annual carrying costs of a crewed vessel is roughly 10 percent of its sticker price, with that percentage rising depending on the yacht’s size, sophistication, and whether it is currently at sea.

Megayachts have dozens of crew members for a reason—not just to serve guests daiquiris and change their sheets, but also to keep the vessel from falling apart. Some of the risks include salt damage to the hull and furnishings, sea water entering the fuel tanks causing “diesel bug” bacterial growth in the engine, barnacles, sun exposure, and even excrement from seagulls. Each can destroy a yacht in slow motion, which means that these freshly seized assets could be worthless by the time their owners’ cases have been adjudicated.

The majority of the yachts seized so far have been nabbed by foreign law enforcement agencies, many of which seem content to allow them to fall fallow in the meantime . But in the United States, the U.S. Marshals Service is often in charge of taking custody of seized assets, and is required by law to maintain them—even as the yacht remains moored at the Real Club Nautico in Palma, Mallorca.

“If the government does take it into its possession, then it is responsible for the storage and maintenance costs until there’s an interlocutory sale,” Cassella said.

Although sometimes the work is farmed out to a private contractor, the costs are often covered by an asset forfeiture fund, built up from the proceeds of seized goods—things like watches and furs, rather than bricks of cash and machine guns—being sold for their commercial value.

In practice, this can be achieved by requiring the owner of the seized property to fund the maintenance of their car, boat, or plane—or by using the proceeds of forfeited goods sold at auction to keep them in working order.

But in the case of Task Force KleptoCapture’s targets, sanctioned individuals can’t pay their crews or mooring fees as they fight to win their yachts back due to the restricted access of their own fortunes. This effectively prevents Vekselberg, worth an estimated $10 billion before the implementation of sanctions, from paying an estimated $4 million a year to keep Tango seaworthy—even if he wanted to.

And given that Vekselberg is overseas and has enormous resources at his disposal, the case, Cassella said, could stretch on for years—with the U.S. Marshals on the hook in the meantime.

“This could go on for a very long time,” said Cassella. “Forfeiture cases of this complexity, with this amount of money, could go on for five or 10 years.”

According to the Luxury Yacht Group, that could mean the government’s total carrying costs for Tango could stretch into the tens of millions —potentially even exceeding the yacht’s value.

The U.S. Marshals Service does have the option of putting the boat on the auction block, like a cocaine dealer’s slightly used Dodge Viper at a police auction. The money would be held in escrow until the resolution of Vekselberg’s case.

But the international superyacht market has tanked along with the rest of the luxury goods economy—rising fuel prices hit harder when it takes 202,000 liters of premium diesel to fill your tank—which means that would-be megayacht owners could end up scoring a major deal.

And Vekselberg, one State Department official familiar with the sanctions efforts quipped, could learn a critical lesson in luxury good ownership.

“If it floats, flies or fucks,” they said, “rent—don’t buy.”

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Alfa Nero

Antigua and Barbuda to auction off $81m yacht ‘owned by Russian oligarch’

Andrey Guryev, who has been put under UK government sanctions, claims he is not owner of Alfa Nero

An $81m (£67m) superyacht said to be owned by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Andrey Guryev is to be auctioned off by the government of Antigua and Barbuda , which claims the vessel has been abandoned in the Caribbean since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

The government of Antigua and Barbuda on Monday warned the owner of the Alfa Nero superyacht that they had 10 days to claim the vessel or it would be sold to the highest bidder.

The information minister, Melford Nicholas, said Alfa Nero had been abandoned in Falmouth harbour in Antigua since February 2022 and the government was “trying to prevent a future hazard since the luxury vessel is not being maintained by its owner”.

In a statement the office of the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda said: “A notice to the newspapers and other media will be published for a period of 10 days, notifying the sale of the Alfa Nero vessel in order to satisfy the requirements under the law for a forced sale. If the owner fails to claim the vessel within that time period, the government of Antigua and Barbuda will sell it to the highest bidder.”

Guryev, 62, who made a $10bn fortune from the Russian fertiliser company PhosAgro, is the owner of Alfa Nero according to the US government, which imposed sanctions on him last year. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said it had “identified Alfa Nero, a Cayman islands flagged yacht that AG Guryev reportedly bought for $120m in 2014, as blocked property of AG Guryev”.

The yacht, which features a 12-metre infinity pool, a Jacuzzi, a spa, a beauty room and a helipad, has been used by Guryev’s family, including his son (also Andrey) and his son’s wife, Valeria, who studied at the London College of Fashion and once reportedly stated on Instagram that she was “too pretty for work”. Like many yachts, it is owned via an opaque offshore structure, and Guryev has denied being the owner.

Guryev, who was subjected to UK government sanctions in April 2022 , is also, according to the OFAC, the owner of London’s largest private residence: the 25-bedroom £50m Highgate mansion Witanhurst.

‘Live in the mess that Putin has created’: a tour of Russian oligarch-linked properties in London

The property is officially owned via Boradge Ltd, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. Guryev’s London-based lawyers have said “Mr Guryev does not own Witanhurst”, without providing further details. Guryev’s spokesperson has previously told the New Yorker that he was a beneficiary of a trust owning the property but not the legal owner.

Last year Gibraltar auctioned off the £65m superyacht Axioma owned by the sanctioned steel billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky. The sale of Axioma attracted controversy because it is being sold not for the benefit of the Ukrainian people but for a US investment bank, JP Morgan, which claims Pumpyansky owes it more than €20.5m (£17m).

Pumpyansky was until March of 2022 the owner and chairman of the steel pipe manufacturer OAO TMK, a supplier to the Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom. The UK said the billionaire, who it said had built up an estimated £1.84bn fortune, was one of the oligarchs “closest to Putin” .

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Seized $300M Russian superyacht faces sale as US government cites $600K in monthly upkeep

T he US government asked a judge for permission to sell a $300 million Russian superyacht seized in 2022 — citing the fact that it’s been costing taxpayers $600,000 a month to maintain.

The hefty monthly tab includes $360,000 in payments to the 348-foot vessel’s crew, plus $75,000 for fuel and $165,000 in other maintenance, like waste removal and food, according to court papers filed by the US in Manhattan on Friday obtained by Bloomberg.

The superyacht, called Amadea, reportedly belongs to Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, an alleged money launderer sanctioned by the US in 2018 as one of several oligarchs who profited from the Kremlin “through corruption and its malign activities around the globe, including the occupation of Crimea,” according to the Justice Department.

Kerimov, 57, is worth $9.1 billion, according to Bloomberg’s calculations, which he built making hefty bets on Russian companies across a variety of industries after the fall of the Soviet Union, the outlet reported.

Amadea was seized at the request of the US government in Fiji in April 2022 , though the costs it has incurred since then shouldn’t have to be paid by the American public while the court considers whether to order forfeiture of the vessel, the government said in its court filing, per Bloomberg.

The $600,000-a-month bill is “far from modest,” the DOJ added.

Authorities are also due to pay Amadea’s $1.7 million annual iinsurance bill this month, according to Bloomberg, and the vessel is scheduled to go into dry dock for repairs in March.

Though the DOJ won’t have to pay monthly maintenance costs when Amadea is in dry dock, it expects to cough up $5.6 million to mend the yacht.

Amadea isn’t the only asset a Justice Department task force has targeted. The group has been seizing yachts, planes and luxury real estate of wealthy Russians who have been sanctioned in connection with the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported.

In March, for example, US investigators asked a judge for permission to take over a Southampton  mansion along with two Park Avenue condos and property on Fisher Island in Florida worth a combined $75 million owned by sanctioned Russian businessman Viktor Vekselberg.

A year prior, Vekselberg’s  $90 million, 255-foot superyacht , Tango, was seized in Spain at the request of the US government. 

The US has hoped that by seizing the property of wealthy Russian leaders, it will punish them for backing the war and influence their future behavior.

Should Amadea be allowed to go to sale, the court’s next hurdle is figureing out who actually owns the luxury yacht, according to Bloomberg.

Though the US says Kerimov is the owner, the American government has also accused him of violating sanctions by making payments that went to US companies or passed through the US financial system, Bloomberg reported.

Eduard Khudainatov, the ex-CEO of Russian state-owned oil producer Rosneft, has also claimed that he’s the actual owner of Amadea.

Khudainatov has been considered Vladimir Putin’s right-hand man, and was thrust into the limelight in May 2022, when US authorities identified him as the proxy owner of two seized superyachts: Amadea and the 459-foot Scheherazade, the $700 million luxury boat impounded by Italy.

Khudainatov, however, hasn’t been sanctioned by the US.

Lawyers for the obscure oligarch said in a statement that Khudainatov would reimburse the US for the cost of maintaining Amadea — which already totals about $20 million — if it is returned to him, according to Bloomberg.

The lawyers called the seizure “unlawful.”

While the US rejects Khudainatov’s claim, it says that he should pay for the maintenance until a decision is made about the vessel’s forfeiture, Bloomberg reported.

As long as Khudainatov isn’t paying, the government says it’s entitled to sell the boat.

Seized $300M Russian superyacht faces sale as US government cites $600K in monthly upkeep

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Superyacht seized by U.S. from Russian billionaire arrives in San Diego Bay

June 27, 2022 / 3:40 PM EDT / CBS/AP

A $325 million superyacht seized by the United States from a sanctioned Russian oligarch arrived in San Diego Bay on Monday.

The 348-foot-long (106-meter-long) Amadea flew an American flag as it sailed past the retired aircraft carrier USS Midway and under the Coronado Bridge.

"After a transpacific journey of over 5,000 miles (8,047 kilometers), the Amadea has safely docked in a port within the United States, and will remain in the custody of the U.S. government, pending its anticipated forfeiture and sale," the Department of Justice said in a statement.

The FBI linked the Amadea to the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, and the vessel became a target of Task Force KleptoCapture, launched in March to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs to put pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine. The U.S. said Kerimov secretly bought the vessel last year through various shell companies.

But Justice Department  officials had been stymied  by a legal effort to contest the American seizure warrant and by a yacht crew that refused to sail for the U.S. American officials won a legal battle in Fiji to take the Cayman Islands-flagged superyacht earlier this month. 

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The Amadea made a stop in Honolulu Harbor en route to the U.S. mainland. The Amadea boasts  luxury features  such as a helipad, mosaic-tiled pool, lobster tank and a pizza oven, nestled in a décor of "delicate marble and stones" and "precious woods and delicate silk fabrics," according to court documents.

"The successful seizure and transport of Amadea would not have been possible without extraordinary cooperation from our foreign partners in the global effort to enforce U.S. sanctions imposed in response to Russia's unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine," the Justice Department said.

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A russian oligarch's $90 million yacht is seized as part of u.s. sanctions.

russian yachts seized for sale

A Civil Guard stands by the yacht called Tango in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on Monday. U.S. federal agents and Spain's Civil Guard are searching the yacht owned by a Russian oligarch. Francisco Ubilla/AP hide caption

A Civil Guard stands by the yacht called Tango in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on Monday. U.S. federal agents and Spain's Civil Guard are searching the yacht owned by a Russian oligarch.

Spanish officials have seized a Russian-owned luxury yacht in Mallorca at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. It was the first coordinated seizure under the department's Task Force KleptoCapture, which is tasked with enforcing the sweeping sanctions placed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

The $90 million 255-foot yacht, named Tango, is owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who heads the Renova Group, a Russian conglomerate with interests in metallurgy, machinery, energy, telecommunications as well as others.

"Today marks our taskforce's first seizure of an asset belonging to a sanctioned individual with close ties to the Russian regime. It will not be the last," said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement. "Together, with our international partners, we will do everything possible to hold accountable any individual whose criminal acts enable the Russian government to continue its unjust war."

The seizure was performed by Spanish Guardia Civil officers with assistance from the FBI.

U.S. officials allege that the Tango has been owned continuously by Vekselberg since 2011 and that he used shell companies to " obfuscate his interest in the Tango ," the Justice Department said in a press release.

The release cites alleges bank fraud and money laundering as justification for the seizure, highlighting U.S. bank payments for support and maintenance of the vessel — including a December 2020 stay at a luxury water villa resort in the Maldives.

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Inside The 150 Frozen Homes, Yachts And Jets Of Sanctioned Russian Oligarchs

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Viktor Vekselberg's Tango yacht, which was seized by the U.S.

Western countries have frozen or seized at least $9 billion worth of luxury real estate, superyachts and private jets belonging to Russian billionaires since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It hasn’t made much of a difference to their fortunes.

On a cloudy morning in early April 2022, agents from the FBI and Spain's Guardia Civil police boarded a 255-foot superyacht named Tango moored at a marina in Palma, on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca. The yacht, belonging to aluminum baron Viktor Vekselberg , had been sitting in the dock for two months after arriving from Turkey in late January.

Hours after the police raid, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced in a televised statement that the $90 million yacht had been seized at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. "We will now seek to have the vessel forfeited as the proceeds of a crime," he said at the time.

According to the seizure warrant —which cited Forbes' reporting on superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs —Vekselberg had used shell companies to hide his ownership of Tango and used U.S. banks to pay for the yacht's maintenance, evading sanctions placed on him in 2018.

It was a watershed moment, marking the first time that Western authorities had outright seized a Russian oligarch’s assets. "This [was] a historical event,” says Viktor Winkler, a sanctions lawyer and former head of global sanctions standards at German bank Commerzbank. "[Vekselberg] was already sanctioned in 2018, and that made him one of the few people where there was enough time for him to do something, like evade sanctions, and for the authorities to investigate."

In the days after Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Western countries began sanctioning dozens of Russian oligarchs and billionaires. From Fiji to France, authorities detained yachts and aircraft and ordered a freeze on homes that prevented sanctioned Russian oligarchs from visiting, selling or paying for the upkeep of their prized possessions.

As of April 2023, Forbes estimates that Western countries have frozen or seized at least 15 billionaire-owned yachts, 11 jets and helicopters and 124 homes worth a total of $9 billion. That’s small change when compared to the collective $310 billion fortune of the 46 sanctioned Russian and Russian-born billionaires on Forbes’ 2023 World’s Billionaires list.

That $9 billion includes assets that have been frozen, meaning the billionaire still owns them, but they can’t access or sell them or pay for their maintenance. Relatively few assets have been formally seized by authorities, which allows governments to take ownership and auction them. The U.S. seized Vekselberg’s Tango and Suleiman Kerimov ’s yacht Amadea plus nine homes in New York, Florida and Washington D.C. belonging to Vekselberg and Oleg Deripaska . Overall, the seized assets are worth an estimated $635 million—a drop in the bucket for people worth billions of dollars.

While sanctions haven’t hit oligarchs’ pocketbooks very much, they have had an impact by physically cutting them off from their luxury possessions in the West. When calculating the net worth of Russian billionaires, Forbes excluded the value of any homes, yachts or aircraft that have been frozen or seized.

“The likelihood of the West ever lifting the current sanctions is very, very low,” says Winkler, the sanctions lawyer. “The fact that the owner remains the owner is irrelevant, because the blocking of assets through sanctions prohibits not just him, but anybody from any use of the assets, no matter how small.”

The most high-profile targets of Western sanctions have been the oligarchs’ palatial superyachts. But detaining these vessels doesn’t come cheap. Many were held in Mediterranean and Caribbean ports in the weeks after the war began and have been slowly decaying ever since, racking up tens of millions of dollars in bills that governments need to pay to keep them afloat.

“None of the vessels affected actually have any financial value to their respective owners. Whether seized or merely detained, they can no longer function as a yacht,” says Benjamin Maltby, a partner at London-based law firm Keystone Law who focuses on superyachts. “They can’t be used as a form of transport or a platform for recreation and they can’t be sold by their owners. These are assets which are physically deteriorating.”

When it comes to bank accounts and stakes in companies, the value of the frozen assets is much larger. Within a month of the invasion, Forbes estimated that sanctions had hit more than $23 billion in assets belonging to Russian billionaires, including homes, yachts and jets. Last month, a joint statement from the U.S.-led Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force—which includes the U.S., U.K., the European Union and Japan—announced that it had blocked or frozen more than $58 billion in financial assets held by sanctioned Russians, including non-billionaires.

Despite those efforts to target their “ill-gotten gains,” Forbes found that Russian oligarchs are still extremely wealthy: 46 sanctioned billionaires have lost only an estimated $48 billion—about 14% of their collective net worth—since February 23, 2022, the day before the invasion.

In response to the sanctions, the billionaires have used their armies of lawyers to fight back. At least 20 sanctioned billionaires have filed lawsuits in the European Union’s General Court to seek removal of sanctions. Oleg Deripaska filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court last June over sanctions dating back to 2018, while steel tycoon Alexander Abramov sued Australia over the country’s sanctions the same month.

Even if they win their cases in Europe, it’s unlikely the sanctions will be lifted, according to sanctions lawyer Viktor Winkler. “In the past…[the EU] simply reissued the same sanctions designation merely with a different reasoning,” he says. “Sanctions lawyers call them 'narratives.’ As a matter of law, the EU is allowed to do that.”

No matter what happens in court, it’s clear that Western sanctions have failed at their stated goal: causing enough financial pain to convince the oligarchs to apply pressure on Vladimir Putin.

Here are the luxury homes, yachts and jets frozen and seized by Western countries:

REAL ESTATE

Number of properties: 124, total value: $5 billion.

Dmitry Mazepin's Rocky Ram villa in Sardinia, Italy, which has been frozen by Italian authorities.

Total value: $2.9 billion

Alisher Usmanov's Dilbar yacht, which has been frozen by German authorities.

Total value: $1.1 billion

A Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Roman Abramovich owns a Boeing 787, which is the subject of a U.S. seizure warrant.

Giacomo Tognini

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Seized yacht of russian oligarch suleiman kerimov arrives in us.

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A massive $325 million superyacht owned by a Russian oligarch — and seized on behalf of the United States last month — has made its way across the Pacific and into American custody.

“After a transpacific journey of over 5,000 miles, the Amadea has safely docked in a port within the United States, and will remain in the custody of the U.S. government, pending its anticipated forfeiture and sale,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.

The Amadea, a 384 foot behemoth topped with four massive radar domes came into San Diego Bay Monday flying the American flag.

According to the DOJ, prior to its seizure the ship was owned by Suleiman Kerimov, an alleged money launderer sanctioned by the US in 2018 over the Russian annexation of Crimea.

The ship was seized last month by Task Force KleptoCapture , a DOJ team launched in March to seize the assets of Kremlin allies and Russian elites in an effort to pressure Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.

A legal battle ensued, however, as an attorney for the company that owns the vessel — Millemarin Investments — argued that the Amadea was actually the property of a different wealthy Russian, one who was not under US sanction .

Russian billionaire, businessman and Council of the Federation Member Suleyman Kerimov

US officials argued in Fijian court that that Russian, Eduard Khudainatov, was merely the owner on paper — and that he is similarly the “paper owner” of a yacht believed to truly belong to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The US questioned how Khudainatov could afford some $1 billion in boats.

“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,” the FBI wrote in a court affidavit.

Ultimately, the Fijian court ruled in the DOJ’s favor. The Amadea made one stop in Honolulu, according to American authorities, before sailing for San Diego.

With Post wires

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Continuing Coverage

NBC 7 San Diego

Who's Paying for Russian Oligarch's Seized Yacht in San Diego Bay?

The amadea, which superyachttimes.com called the 63rd largest yacht in the world, tied up monday at naval base san diego, in national city, by eric s. page and mari payton • published june 28, 2022 • updated on june 28, 2022 at 2:11 pm.

Many San Diegans who saw the news about the Amadea — the $325 million seized Russian oligarch's yacht that docked in San Diego on Monday — may be wondering: Who's paying for that?

Imagine how much the fuel costs to sail it more than 5,000 miles from Fiji, where it was seized earlier this month, to San Diego? A local marine fuel dock quoted the following prices, if you're wondering: $7.40 for gas, $7.35 for diesel. According to SuperYachtTimes.com, the Amadea has a 392,000-liter fuel tank. That works out to about 103,555 gallons, so it could cost $766,307 or so just to fill up.

And then there are maintence costs on a 350-foot long yacht, which, you can be sure, are extensive and necessary — in fact, not undertaking such efforts can cause the vessel's value to decline if it deteriotes due to neglect.

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The Amadea carries a full complement of 36 crew, including the captain, according to SuperYachtTimes, but it won't need nearly that many once she tied up at Naval Base San Diego in National City. Nevertheless, someone will be monitoring the yacht and conducting the maintenance.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the yacht was bought with what it calls "dirty money," and, as such, some may be relieved to hear, will be sold to the highest bidder. Presumably, the associated post-seizure costs accrued after its seizure will be coming off the top of the sale price. Until then, the Amadea, which SuperYachtTimes called the 63rd larges yacht in the world, will resume in the custody of the U.S.

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Officials with the DOJ said the Amadea, which was seized in connection to the department's KleptoCapture campaign undertaken in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, was owned by Suleiman Kerimov a Russian billionaire.

After the yacht arrived in San Diego, John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor, told NBC 7 that he thinks the U.S. government hopes moves like the Amadea's seizure are efforts to apply pressure to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Earlier this month, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said, regarding the Amadea, “The department had its eyes on every yacht purchased with dirty money. This yacht seizure should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide — not even in the remotest part of the world. We will use every means of enforcing the sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine.”

The court ruling represented a significant victory for the U.S. as it encounters obstacles in its attempts to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs around the world. While those efforts are welcomed by many who oppose the war in Ukraine, some actions have tested the limits of American jurisdiction abroad.

The United States wasted no time in taking command of the after a Fiji court ruled in its favor and sailed the ship away from the South Pacific nation just hours after the ruling.

"If you could say or somehow prove that this boat … that the oligarch had the money for this boat because he bribed Vladimir Putin, that is public corruption," Kirby said. "It’s a crime even when it takes place outside the United States. The United States can still act upon it."

According the website, the Amadea is not currently for sale, but that may soon change. Until then, you can "shop" for other eye-popping, wallet-busting boats here .

The Associated Press contributed to this report — Ed.

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Why the U.S. put a $1 million bounty on a Russian yacht’s alleged manager

On Sept. 3, 2020, the staff of a $90 million yacht placed an order with a U.S. company for a set of luxury bathrobes that came to $2,624.35.

For roughly two years before that, according to federal prosecutors, the yacht’s management had been falsely claiming it was working for a boat named “Fanta.” But the luxury bathrobes came embroidered with a monogram that, prosecutors said, revealed the yacht’s true identity: “Tango.”

That was a problem, officials say in court papers, because Tango was owned by a Russian billionaire under U.S. sanctions, and doing business on his behalf violated federal law.

Late last month, U.S. authorities unveiled a $1 million reward for information leading to the arrest and or conviction of the man they say was running the yacht staff and orchestrated the deception with the robes — Vladislav Osipov, 52, a Swiss-based businessman from Russia. In a new indictment , federal prosecutors say Osipov misled U.S. banks and companies into doing business with the Tango yacht despite the sanctions on the Russian owner, whom the Justice Department has identified as billionaire Viktor Vekselberg .

Osipov has denied the allegations. Osipov’s attorney has said that the government has failed to demonstrate that Vekselberg owned the yacht, and that its management was therefore not a sanctions violation.

The reward offer for Osipov reflects the latest stage in the evolution of the West’s broader financial war against Russia two years into the war in Ukraine, as the United States and its allies increasingly target intermediaries accused of enabling Russian oligarchs to circumvent sanctions.

Many Russians close to President Vladimir Putin have been under sanctions dating to 2014, when Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine and sent proxy forces into that country’s eastern Donbas region. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, President Biden vowed to deal a “crushing blow” with a barrage of new sanctions on financial institutions, industries, business executives and others tied to the Kremlin. But roughly two years later, Russia’s economy has proved surprisingly resilient after the nation poured tens of billions of dollars into ramping up its military industry. Moscow has also worked around the sanctions, finding new third parties to supply it with critical military and industrial hardware, as well as countries beyond Europe to buy its oil.

Now, the West is trying to increase the reach of its sanctions by digging deeper into Russian supply chains. Late last month, the Treasury Department announced more than 500 new sanctions targeting Russia , primarily on military and industrial suppliers. The Justice Department also announced charges against two U.S.-based “facilitators” of a Russian state banker who is under sanction, as well as the guilty plea of a dual national based in Atlanta who was accused of laundering $150 million through bank accounts and shell companies on behalf of Russian clients.

Prioritizing criminal charges against — and the arrests of — Western employees of Russia’s elites represents a new escalation of the U.S. financial war against Putin, experts say. One Moscow businessman, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said many influential Russians are concerned about the arrest of two associates of Andrey Kostin, the head of VTB, Russia’s second-biggest state bank. These associates, Vadim Wolfson and Gannon Bond, were charged with helping Kostin evade sanctions by maintaining a $12 million property in Aspen, Colo., for Kostin’s benefit while concealing his ownership. Kostin has said that the charges of sanctions evasion against him are “unfounded” and that he has not violated any laws . Bond has pleaded not guilty; Wolfson hasn’t made an initial court appearance yet.

Wolfson, also known as Vadim Belyaev, had been a Russian billionaire until the Russian government took over his bank in 2017. Bond, 49, is a U.S. citizen from Edgewater, N.J. For all Russians living abroad and working with people in Russia, the threat of criminal charges is a much more worrying prospect than the sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department last month against hundreds of individuals and entities, the businessman said, in part because sanctions are far easier to dodge than criminal charges.

“What you have seen through today’s public announcements are our efforts at really targeting the facilitators who possess the requisite skill set, access, connections that allow the Russian war machine [and] the Russian elites to continually have access to Western services and Western goods,” David Lim, co-director of the Justice Department’s KleptoCapture task force, which is tasked with enforcing U.S. sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, told reporters last month.

Thad McBride, an international trade partner at the law firm Bass Berry & Sims, said the crackdown on intermediaries reflected the natural evolution of the U.S. sanctions campaign in response to Russian adjustments.

“It seems to me they have gone through a comprehensive list of the oligarchs, and you can debate whether or not it’s had a meaningful impact on the Russian war effort,” McBride said. “Because they’re getting smarter about who’s who, they’re finding other people who play meaningful roles in these transactions, even though they’re not showing up in the headlines.”

The charges against Osipov related to his alleged management of the Tango yacht illustrate the mounting potential consequences for people in Europe and the United States who attempt to do business with Russians targeted by Western allies, as well as the opaque structures allegedly employed by those seeking to evade sanctions.

With a net worth estimated by Forbes in 2021 at $9 billion, Vekselberg, 66, has long drawn scrutiny from the West — and sought to safeguard his wealth. He made his initial fortune in aluminum and oil in Russia’s privatization of the 1990s and then expanded into industrial and financial assets in Europe, the United States and Africa, with Putin’s blessing. In addition to the yacht, federal prosecutors say, Vekselberg acquired $75 million worth of properties, including apartments on New York’s Park Avenue and an estate in the Long Island town of Southampton.

Vekselberg, who declined to comment for this article, has not been criminally charged by the Justice Department. In a 2019 interview with the Financial Times, he denounced the sanctions as arbitrary and harmful for international business, saying he had been targeted just because he was Russian and rich and knows Putin.

In April 2018, the Treasury Department under the Trump administration sanctioned Vekselberg and six other Russian oligarchs as part of broader financial penalties over the Kremlin’s invasion of Crimea, support for President Bashar al-Assad in Syria and interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Vekselberg was also targeted for his work for the Kremlin as chairman of the Skolkovo Foundation, an attempt to create Russia’s version of the Silicon Valley — evidence that appeared to undermine the Russian businessman’s claims that he operated independently of the Kremlin.

But with Vekselberg’s payments monitored by U.S. banks, according to the federal indictment , Osipov used shell companies and intermediaries to avert the bite of sanctions. Vekselberg kept other major assets out of the reach of U.S. authorities by making use of the Treasury Department’s 50 percent ownership rule, which stipulates that it is illegal to transact with firms only if an owner under sanction controls more than 50 percent of the business.

For example, a month after Treasury imposed sanctions on Vekselberg in April 2018, his Renova Innovation Technologies sold its 48.5 percent stake in Swiss engineering giant Sulzer to Tiwel Holding AG, a group that is nevertheless still “beneficially owned” — meaning, owned in practice — by Vekselberg through Columbus Trust, a Cayman Islands trust, according to Sulzer’s corporate filing. Vekselberg’s longtime right-hand man at Renova, Alexei Moskov, replaced one of Vekselberg’s direct representatives on the board. Moskov told The Washington Post that he stepped down from all his executive positions at Renova Group in 2018 after U.S. sanctions were first imposed and from that moment ceased to be Vekselberg’s employee.

The attempts to circumvent the sanctions appear to have found some success in the U.S. legal system. Columbus Nova, a U.S.-based asset management fund controlling more than $100 million in assets in the U.S. financial and tech industry, is run by Vekselberg’s cousin, Andrew Intrater. The firm battled for more than two years to lift a freeze on Columbus Nova’s assets, imposed by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control because of the sanctions on Vekselberg, and won, reaching a settlement agreement with the Treasury Department. After renaming itself Sparrow Capital LLC, Columbus Nova successfully argued that Intrater — not Vekselberg — owns the fund. Intrater argued that the company was 100 percent owned by U.S. citizens and that no individual or entity under sanction held any interest in it. Intrater said Columbus Nova had earned fees for managing investment funds owned by Renova. He said he had repeatedly told Treasury he would not distribute any funds to Vekselberg.

Now Osipov, the alleged manager of Vekselberg’s $90 million yacht, is attempting a similar argument as U.S. authorities seek his arrest on charges of bank fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and violations of sanctions law.

The federal indictment states that the Tango was owned by a shell corporation registered in the British Virgin Islands that was in turn owned by several other companies. The Virgin Islands shell company, authorities say, was controlled by Osipov, who also served in senior roles for multiple companies controlled by Vekselberg. U.S. officials also say Vekselberg ultimately controlled the other companies that owned the Virgin Islands shell company.

According to the indictment, a Tango official instructed a boat management company in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, to use a false name for the yacht — “Fanta” — to disguise its true identity from U.S. financial institutions and firms, which try to avoid doing business with an entity or person under sanction.

Working at Osipov’s direction, according to the indictment, employees for Tango bought more than $8,000 worth of goods for the yacht that were unwittingly but illegally processed by U.S. firms and U.S. financial institutions, including navigation software, leather basket magazine holders provided by a bespoke silversmith, and web and computing services. The management company running Tango, run by Osipov, also paid invoices worth more than $180,000 to a U.S. internet service provider, federal prosecutors say.

The Tango was seized by the FBI and Spanish authorities in the Mediterranean not long after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and Osipov was first indicted last year. The owner of the Spanish yacht management company hired by Osipov, Richard Masters, 52, of Britain, was criminally charged last year by federal prosecutors with conspiracy to defraud the United States and violating federal sanctions law. A request for comment sent to Masters’ firm was not returned.

But in recent court documents, Osipov’s attorney argues that the yacht was not more than 50 percent owned by Vekselberg, and that the government hasn’t demonstrated it was. Barry J. Pollack, an attorney at Harris, St. Laurent and Wechsler, also says the government never warned Osipov of its novel and “unconstitutional” application of federal sanctions law.

“The government points to no precedent that supports its extraordinary interpretation and cites no authority that allows the traditional rules of statutory construction to be turned on their head,” Pollack wrote in a defense filing. The filing adds: “[Osipov] is not a fugitive because he did not engage in any of the allegedly criminal conduct while in the United States, has never resided in the United States, did not flee from the United States, and has not concealed himself.”

Still, the State Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program has said it will provide up to $1 million for information leading to Osipov’s arrest, warning that he may visit Herrliberg, Switzerland; Majorca, Spain; or Moscow.

The case demonstrates the extent of the U.S. commitment to tighten the screws on those seen as aiding Russian elites, even if they themselves are not closely tied to the Kremlin.

“When DOJ levels legal action against an individual or entity, they have quite a bit of evidence, especially because the threshold to press charges for money-laundering and sanctions evasion is so high,” said Kim Donovan, director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center. “We’ve had quite a bit of experience targeting Russia directly, and what you’re starting to see is the U.S. go after the facilitators enabling sanctions evasion. That’s where the U.S. is focusing its efforts right now.”

russian yachts seized for sale

Simple Flying

Russia's seized leased jets: what's the latest.

The saga of foreign-owned, Russian-seized aircraft marches to a conclusion as more and more aircraft are bought out and re-registered to Russia.

  • Russia quickly seized foreign-leased aircraft to prevent the major impact of sanctions on its aviation industry.
  • Over 170 foreign-owned aircraft have been re-registered by Russian airlines in response to sanctions.
  • Despite challenges with maintenance and foreign parts, Russia is working to replace domestic aircraft that have been delayed by the sanctions.

In February 2022, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In horror, the West reacted by not only supporting Ukraine but also by sanctioning the country. The sanctions had immediate and consequential impacts on Russian aviation. Most commercial aircraft are leased and not owned by the airline operating them - this meant the bulk of the commercial airliners in Russia were Western-owned.

Russia seized around 400 foreign-leased aircraft before the country could be essentially bereft of commercial airliners . Over the last two years, that saga has continued to unfold as Russia has purchased many of these seized aircraft. Recent reporting suggests many more aircraft will be bought and re-registered in Russia (a minority of aircraft are also being repossessed).

The 2022 sanctions

The sanctions imposed on Russia required leasing companies to repossess all the planes they had leased to Russian airlines. Had this happened, it would have been devastating for Russia. Russia moved quickly and seized hundreds of commercial airliners owned by US and European leasing companies to keep them in the country. According to CNN's reporting, 85% of foreign-made planes in Russia were owned by leasing companies (valued at $12.4 billion). Russian airlines at the time of the sanctions operated 305 Airbus jets, 332 Boeing jets, and 83 regional jets built by Bombardier, Embraer, and others. Only 144 of the planes active in Russia at the time were built by Russia.

Discover which airlines are banned from European airspace .

In July 2022, The Washington Post reported an incident in Sri Lanka where the country almost seized an Irish-owned airliner operated by Aeroflot . An employee of Sri Lanka's court system entered the airport with a judicial order grounding an Aeroflot flight set to take off for Moscow. The aircraft's almost 200 passengers were deplaned and sent to local hotels. A diplomatic row ensued and Aeroflot halted all flights to the island.

According to the Washington Post, Russia threatened to cut off energy deliveries to Sri Lanka (the country was already in a severe economic crisis). After a request from the government, Sri Lankan courts issued a new ruling allowing the aircraft to fly back to Russia. Aeroflot may have been able to retrieve its jet this time, but this is not a threat environment airlines are fond of operating in.

Sanctions: What Happened To Russian Aviation During 2022?

The purchase of seized western jets.

Over the last two years, the saga has continued to unfold. Cut off from Western parts and being extremely restricted to where planes can fly internationally, Russia has continued to operate the seized aircraft. It's also questionable how much the leasing companies even want the aircraft back (they don't have acceptable valid airworthiness certificates and have no access to Western parts). This was not a status quo that suited anyone.

Consequently, Russia has been purchasing the seized aircraft. In December 2023, Reuters reported Russia had bought out another 92 aircraft from foreign leasing companies using 190 billion rubles ($2.06 billion) from Russia's National Welfare Fund. At the time, Aeroflot said they had purchased 28 of their aircraft, while 19 had been purchased for Ural Airlines and 45 for S7 Airlines . Another Russian company, Charter iFly, requested these early funds but received none.

Bought-out seized aircraft:

  • Aeroflot: 93 aircraft
  • S7 Airlines: 45 aircraft
  • Ural Airlines: 19 aircraft
  • Aurora Airlines: 8+ aircraft
  • Charter iFly: 0 aircraft

In late January 2024, Reuters again reported that aircraft leasing firms had secured settlements for around a quarter of the approximately 400 seized aircraft (totaling over $2.5 billion). Reuters also stated that the National Welfare Fund had been allocated 296.8 billion rubles ($3.31 billion) by then to buy out the aircraft.

How Russia's Private Jet Owners Are Getting Around Sanctions To Fly To Europe

More purchases are set to follow.

The Russian newspaper Kommersant (one of Russia's main business dailies) reported that the Ministry of Transport in Russia requested another 295 billion to buy out more leased aircraft. The Kommersant noted that some 162 aircraft had already been purchased by mid-March 2024. This amounts to over a third of the foreign-owned fleet in Russia, as a request. In total, adding individual transactions where companies have used their own funds, Russian airlines have re-registered over 170 aircraft of the 400-ish foreign-leased aircraft. In return, the foreign lessors have dropped any claims to the aircraft, and Russia can feel safer flying the aircraft out of the country and not having them counter-seized after touching down.

Russia would like to legalize the entire fleet if it can - but this process takes time to work out. The newspaper stated that most funds were requested for the national carrier Aeroflot to acquire around 90 aircraft. Aeroflot Group alone has re-registered 93 aircraft since the beginning of the debacle in February 2022. The airline operates a fleet of 349 aircraft.

The last couple of years haven't been easy for Russian aviation. The sanctions have made it difficult to maintain foreign aircraft (due to a lack of parts) and fly them abroad (due to the lack of airworthy certificates and the risk of being counter-seized). The sanctions have also crippled Russia's own domestic aviation industry. Since the beginning of the war, Russia's once-touted Sukhoi 100 Superjet has been in limbo , and none have been produced. The Kommersant reported in March 2024 that many domestically built Russian aircraft ( MS-21 , SJ-100 , Tu-214, Il-114, and Baikal) are being delayed. The delays in domestic Russian replacements have made buying out the foreign aircraft all the more important Kommersant noted.

A tale of repossessions

Not all foreign aircraft are being re-registered in Russia - a few are being repossessed. It has recently been reported that the Singapore-based aircraft lessor, BOC Aviation, has repossessed three Boeing 747 freighter aircraft . These had been on lease to AirBridgeCargo in Russia. While the first of the three was able to be repossessed immediately (it was in Hong Kong for maintenance), the last of the freighters - a Boeing 747-8F (registration VQ-BFU) has just arrived at Shanghai's Pudong International Airport, ending its 2-year internment in Russia.

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NEW + USED YACHT SALES

Denison Yachting is a yacht brokerage firm specializing in yacht sales (as well as super yacht + charter sales) that has helped boat buyers find superyachts , motor yachts , catamarans , sailboats , and trawlers .

Prospective yacht owners interested in buying a new luxury yacht can search for yachts on the market worldwide by brand, make, type, length, price, location, year, and more. You can even search for yachts in Bitcoin, as we offer the option to purchase with Cryptocurrency. Our yacht selection includes megayachts of all sizes and from all over the world.

YACHT BROKERS WITH EXPERIENCE

Our team of licensed + bonded yacht brokers offer our clients three generations of yachting expertise. With over 100 brokers worldwide, their knowledge and experience in the yachting industry with both new and used yachts is one of the biggest factors in our success. With a large inventory of yachts for sale combined with our industry leading level of service & expertise, our brokers are guaranteed to find the perfect boat for your yachting needs, be it a luxury superyacht, a used catamaran, a large sailboat, or just about any yacht of your dreams.

328' Alarnia 2023

Fort lauderdale, fl, us, 308' azimut 2022, fremantle, wa, australia, $10,900,000, 262' benetti 2024 simon fraser, genova, italy, 262' isa 2025, ancona, it-an, italy, 262' oceanco 2019 y701, €79,750,000, 262' admiral 2024 galileo 80, carrara, italy, 257' abeking & rasmussen 2011 amaryllis, nassau, bahamas, €89,000,000, 255' custom 1962 hansa, karlskrona, sweden, 249' custom 1972 lady sarya, monaco, monaco, €12,000,000, 243' lurssen 2007 global, la ciotat, france, €79,000,000, 243' lurssen 2017 aurora, dubai, united arab emirates, €130,000,000, 240' delta marine 2006 laurel, west palm beach, fl, us, $69,500,000, 235' custom 1983 nansen explorer, kristiansund, norway, €15,900,000, 230' admiral 2024 galileo 70, 226' custom 2024, €70,000,000, 223' custom 2025, €95,000,000, 220' heesen 2023 yn20067, rotterdam, netherlands, €99,000,000, 213' admiral 2024 admiral 65m u force, 210' sirena 2017 my kokomo 64' 2017, ancona, italy, 210' custom 2011 running on waves, athens, greece, €17,500,000, 209' royal denship 2006 cupani, palma, balearic islands, spain, $29,950,000, 209' vsy 2020 atomic, phillipsburg, saint martin, $63,000,000, 207' delta 2025 project metaverse, seattle, wa, us, $95,000,000, 203' sarp yachts 2025 project nacre, antalya, turkey, €45,000,000, 203' crn 2020 my voice, €65,000,000, 202' amels 2003 calypso, la ciotat, france, €40,000,000, 201' custom 1973 voyager, la seyne-sur-mer, 83, france, 200' custom 2025, 198' alia yachts 2016 samurai, miami, fl, us, €44,000,000, 198' leapher 2025 horizon, tolkamer, netherlands, compare yachts.

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Yachts for sale in Moscow

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Yachts for sale in Moscow Benetti B NOW 63m

Benetti B NOW 63m

2022 | Price on request

Yachts for sale in Moscow Grande 38 METRI TRI-DECK

Grande 38 METRI TRI-DECK

Yachts for sale in Moscow DAYDREAM

1991/2008 | €4,900,000

Yachts for sale in Moscow Icon 84m

Sunseeker 115 35m

2016 | €10,000,000

Yachts for sale in Moscow Benetti Mediterraneo 116

Benetti Mediterraneo 116

2021 | €14,800,000

Yachts for sale in Moscow Benetti Fast 125 Charisma

Benetti Fast 125 Charisma

2015 | €13,900,000

Yachts for sale in Moscow Rossinavi Rover 50

Rossinavi Rover 50

2025 | €38,000,000

Yachts for sale in Moscow Princess X95

Princess X95

2022 | €9,900,000

Yachts for sale in Moscow XVINTAGE

2020 | Price on request

Yachts for sale in Moscow Pershing 108

Pershing 108

2019 | Price on request

Yachts for sale in Moscow ADMIRAL MOMENTUM 47

ADMIRAL MOMENTUM 47

2021 | €26,500,000

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COMMENTS

  1. Seized Russian Oligarchs' Superyachts Are Still Stuck in Limbo

    Eugene Tanner / Getty Images. It's been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, leading to sanctions against Russian oligarchs. Many of their superyachts were seized or frozen, leading industry ...

  2. List of Russian Oligarchs' yachts, homes and assets being seized

    Giuliano Berti/Bloomberg/Getty Images. The Italian financial police seized Russian billionaire Gennady Timchenko's yacht, named "Lena," in the port of San Remo, according to a police ...

  3. Here are the superyachts seized from Russian oligarchs

    Authorities in Italy seized a 215-foot superyacht called the Lady M this month. It's owned by Alexei Mordashov, Russia's richest businessman, and it's estimated to be worth $27 million. The ...

  4. JPMorgan forces sale of Russian oligarch's megayacht

    Scores of yachts and houses linked to Russian oligarchs have been seized by world governments since the invasion. British and American authorities have said they would seek to send the proceeds of ...

  5. First seized Russian superyacht to be sold at auction

    A superyacht formerly owned by sanctioned Russian tycoon Dmitry Pumpyansky will be sold on Tuesday, according to auction house Howe Robinson Partners. Why it matters: The 240-foot Axioma is the first of several superyachts seized in response to the Russian military's invasion of Ukraine to be sold at auction, Nigel Hollyer, a Howe Robinson ...

  6. Russian oligarch's seized superyacht sold for $37.5m

    Last modified on Tue 27 Sep 2022 14.27 EDT. A luxury superyacht taken from a Russian oligarch facing sanctions has been sold to an undisclosed buyer for $37.5m (£35m) in the first sale of its ...

  7. Russian oligarch's yacht costs U.S. taxpayers close to $1 ...

    By Robert Frank, CNBC. A mega-yacht seized by U.S. authorities from a Russian oligarch is costing the government nearly $1 million a month to maintain, according to new court filings. The U.S ...

  8. $4 Billion Worth of Seized Russian-Owned ...

    512' Lürssen | DILBAR. Source: Superyacht Times. Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov's colossal 512-foot superyacht looks more like a cruise ship. DILBAR was seized in Germany on March 2, 2022 by the German government. The Lürssen yacht was valued somewhere between $600-$750 million-talk about a hefty loss.

  9. The U.S. seized Russian oligarchs' superyachts. Now, American ...

    Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Stephanie Baker, senior writer at Bloomberg News, about the complications involved in seizing and maintaining superyachts owned by sanctioned Russian billionaires.

  10. Seized Russian Yachts May Soon Be on the Auction Block

    The majority of the yachts seized so far have been nabbed by foreign law enforcement agencies, many of which seem content to allow them to fall fallow in the meantime.But in the United States, the ...

  11. Antigua and Barbuda to auction off $81m yacht 'owned by Russian

    An $81m (£67m) superyacht said to be owned by the sanctioned Russian oligarch Andrey Guryev is to be auctioned off by the government of Antigua and Barbuda, which claims the vessel has been ...

  12. Seized $300M Russian superyacht faces sale as US government cites ...

    Sponsored Content. The US government asked a judge for permission to sell a $300 million Russian superyacht seized in 2022 — citing the fact that it's been costing taxpayers $600,000 a month ...

  13. Superyacht seized by U.S. from Russian billionaire arrives in San Diego

    June 27, 2022 / 3:40 PM EDT / CBS/AP. A $325 million superyacht seized by the United States from a sanctioned Russian oligarch arrived in San Diego Bay on Monday. The 348-foot-long (106-meter-long ...

  14. A Russian oligarch's $90 million yacht is seized as part of U.S ...

    A Russian oligarch's $90 million yacht is seized as part of U.S. sanctions "Today marks our taskforce's first seizure of an asset belonging to a sanctioned individual with close ties to the ...

  15. Inside The 150 Frozen Homes, Yachts And Jets Of Sanctioned Russian

    As of April 2023, Forbes estimates that Western countries have frozen or seized at least 15 billionaire-owned yachts, 11 jets and helicopters and 124 homes worth a total of $9 billion. That's ...

  16. Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov's seized yacht arrives in US

    A massive $325 million superyacht owned by a Russian oligarch — and seized on behalf of the United States last month — has made its way across the Pacific and into American custody.

  17. Who's Paying for Russian Oligarch's Seized Yacht in San Diego Bay?

    That works out to about 103,555 gallons, so it could cost $766,307 or so just to fill up. A $325 million 350-foot yacht owned by a sanctioned "beneficiary of Russian corruption" was put into port ...

  18. Why the U.S. put a $1 million bounty on a Russian yacht's alleged

    On Sept. 3, 2020, the staff of a $90 million yacht placed an order with a U.S. company for a set of luxury bathrobes that came to $2,624.35. For roughly two years before that, according to federal ...

  19. Russia Seized 400 Foreign-Owned Jets. Then an Epic Insurance Fight

    Russia's seizure of billions of dollars worth of foreign-owned planes has set off the biggest-ever brawl in the normally staid business of aircraft insurance. Some of the world's biggest ...

  20. Russia's Seized Leased Jets: What's The Latest?

    According to CNN's reporting, 85% of foreign-made planes in Russia were owned by leasing companies (valued at $12.4 billion). Russian airlines at the time of the sanctions operated 305 Airbus jets, 332 Boeing jets, and 83 regional jets built by Bombardier, Embraer, and others. Only 144 of the planes active in Russia at the time were built by ...

  21. Yacht for Sale

    Yacht for Sale is a 81 superyacht built by Princess in 2005. Currently she is located in Moscow and awaiting her new owners. Toggle navigation. Yacht Sales Yacht Sales. Boat + Yacht Search; ... Westport Yachts; Yachts for sale; 81' Princess +1 954.763.3971 [email protected] ...

  22. 13M Euros in French Real Estate Seized From Berezovsky

    Russia has seized real estate in France worth about 13 million euros from former tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who lives in London and is wanted by Russian authorities on fraud and other charges, a ...

  23. Buy a yacht in Moscow

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  24. An Unknown Black Marketeer from Russia May Have The Fuel for a ...

    US officials say the presence of identical nuclear explosive materials in three separate smuggling incidents indicates someone has a larger cache — and is hunting for a buyer.