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A superyacht captured in Fiji last month, at the request of US authorities, has arrived in Hawaii. Washington says the $ 300 million Amadea superyacht is owned by Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, who has been sanctioned.
The working group set up at the US Department of Justice, called KleptoCapture, has focused on seizing yachts and other luxury properties of Russian oligarchs, in an effort to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine.
The yacht, 106 meters long, left Fiji port Lautoka last week after the Pacific island nation’s Supreme Court ruled that keeping it would be costly for the government.
The ship reportedly docked in Honolulu on Thursday afternoon.
The superyacht was seized in Fiji on 13 April. He had come there from Mexico, after an 18-day trip. An FBI document said the yacht had deactivated its automated information systems on February 24, almost immediately after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine as part of an effort to avert confiscation.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special military operation.”
Lawyers for Amadea’s owner, Millemarin Investment Ltd, a company registered in the Cayman Islands, told a Fiji court that the yacht was not owned by Mr Kerimov, but by another Russian oligarch, the former head of Rosneft ROSN.MM ”Eduard Khudainatov, against whom no sanctions are imposed,
But the United States says Mr. Kerimov is the real owner of Amadea.
The United States imposed sanctions on Mr. Kerimov in 2014 and 2018 in response to Russia’s actions in Syria and Ukraine. The European Union has also imposed sanctions on him./VOA
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