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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. 

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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U.S. Seeks Forfeiture of Russian Oligarch’s Superyacht ‘Amadea’ Docked in San Diego

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The Justice Department on Monday sought the forfeiture of a $300 million superyacht docked in San Diego that is believed to be controlled by billionaire Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov , who is under U.S. sanctions.

Authorities in Fiji seized the 348-foot Amadea pursuant to a U.S. warrant in May 2022 as Washington ramped up sanctions enforcement against people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, to pressure Moscow to halt its war against Ukraine.

Monday’s complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, kicks off a potentially long judicial process in which the United States would seek ownership of the yacht, and then likely auction it and transfer proceeds to Ukraine.

Kerimov and his family are worth $10.7 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

He amassed much of his wealth through a stake in Russian gold producer Polyus. Kerimov was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2014 and 2018 in response to Russia’s activities in Syria and Ukraine. Those sanctions barred Kerimov from accessing the U.S. financial system.

Polyus was sanctioned in May 2023. The company said the sanctions were unfounded.

In Monday’s complaint, the U.S. Department of Justice said Kerimov bought the Amadea in 2021, and then violated U.S. sanctions by making more than $1 million in maintenance payments through U.S. financial institutions.

The yacht’s owners will have the chance to contest that claim in court.

Kerimov could not immediately be reached for comment.

Lawyers for the Amadea’s owner, Millemarin Investments, told a Fiji court last year that the Amadea was owned not by Kerimov but by former Rosneft chief Eduard Khudainatov, a Russian oligarch who has not been sanctioned.

Khudainatov is not named in Monday’s complaint.

U.S. prosecutors said a Sept. 14, 2021, transaction transferring ownership of the Amadea from Millemarin to a newly incorporated company, Errigan Marine, was designed to make it appear that Evgeny Kochman, the president of sanctioned yacht broker Imperial Yachts, owned the yacht.

Prosecutors said Kochman was, in fact, only a “straw owner.”

Khudainatov sued the United States on Monday in federal court in San Diego to release the yacht, according to a copy of the complaint provided by his lawyer, Adam Ford. Reuters could not immediately locate the legal papers online.

“The Amadea was seized upon false premises driven by political motivation,” Ford said in a statement.

A seized $300 million superyacht linked to a sanctioned Russian gold tycoon arrived in San Diego Bay flying the US flag

• A $300 million superyacht linked to Russian tycoon Suleiman Kerimov arrived in San Diego Monday.
• The Amadea had sailed from Fiji, which seized the yacht at the behest of the US.
• The DOJ said the yacht will remain in the custody of the US government pending forfeiture and sale.

A seized $300 million superyacht linked to a sanctioned Russian gold tycoon arrived in San Diego Bay on Monday flying the US flag.

The 348-foot Amadea, which the US says is owned by Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, had sailed from Honolulu, where it was moored after arriving from Fiji.

Fiji's top court earlier ruled the US could seize the yacht.

The US Department of Justice said in a tweet Monday that the Amadea will remain in the custody of the US government "pending its anticipated forfeiture and sale."

The seizure of the Amadea was coordinated through the DOJ's Task Force KleptoCapture, launched in March to enforce sanctions, export restrictions, and economic countermeasures designed to isolate Russia from global markets and disrupt its war in Ukraine.

The Amadea features a gym, beauty salon, bar, glass elevator, infinity pool , and helipad. Its annual running costs are in the $25 million to $30 million range, the DOJ has estimated.

Kerimov has been sanctioned by the US, the European Union, and the UK. The EU said in March that Kerimov is "a member of the inner circle of oligarchs" close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kerimov has a net worth of $13.4 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

• Main content

Federal government moves to confiscate mega yacht seized from alleged Russian oligarch

NATIONAL CITY, Calif. (KGTV) — After letting a mega yacht seized from an alleged Russian oligarch sit in San Diego bay for nearly 18 months, the federal government is now beginning the process of trying to officially confiscate it.

The Amadea was seized in Fiji and arrived in San Diego in June of 2022. According to court documents obtained by ABC 10News, federal prosecutors allege that the yacht is owned by Suleiman Kerimov, a Russian billionaire who was sanctioned following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Kerimov had the ship custom-built at a reported cost of $300 million dollars. It's considered one of the most lavish mega yachts in the world. "Even in our jaded industry, the yacht behind me is a superstar," said yacht expert Todd Roberts, President of Marine Group Boat Works, a ship yard in Chula Vista that works on mega yachts, though not contracted to work on the Amadea.

While the government may hope to win the case to confiscate the yacht and sell it, that may be a tricky proposition. “Nobody really wants international law to be designed in a way where countries can just sort of seize other country’s assets and actually confiscate them," explained University of San Diego law professor Craig Barkacs.

He says it is not legally clear that the United States has the right to confiscate the ship, even after seizing it. There are a number of United States and international laws that could be at play. He points out that the seizure of the ship for violating sanctions is more of a political decision than a legal one.

Even the ownership of Amadea by Kerimov is being challenged, with a counter lawsuit filed on behalf of another man who claims to be owner of the yacht. Barkacs says the court battle could last a long time. “The answer to your question is, I don’t want to sound too cynical here, but 'in perpetuity' comes to mind.”

Meanwhile, the government is stuck with the ship. Roberts says it must be maintained because letting it rot would lead to leaks and environmental damage to the bay. He estimates the cost of paying for fuel to power the generators, plus maintenance, and the salaries of the 20-30 person crew living full-time on the yacht to be between $4-6 million annually.

If it wins in court, the government could sell Amadea to recoup its money. But for now, it will remain parked in its spot next to Pepper Park.

“If the boat’s going to sit anywhere, it’s great that it’s here in San Diego," Roberts said.

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

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.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

Where do you hide a 500-foot yacht? Asking for an oligarch

A sanctions regime aimed at putting pressure on Russia’s wealthiest citizens has put a spotlight on the global mega-yacht trade

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It’s one thing to stuff cash under your mattress or move millions into an offshore bank account. Hiding a mega-yacht from multiple governments and a global mob of private citizens is a bit trickier.

To intensify sanctions on Russia and further throttle the finances of the Kremlin’s uber-wealthy allies, the Biden administration this week announced a “KleptoCapture” task force that is aggressively targeting Russian oligarchs by seizing real estate and other prized assets.

“We’re coming for you,” Deputy Atty. Gen. Lisa Monaco told Bloomberg . “We’re coming for your yacht. We’re coming for your jet.”

Other countries are imposing similar measures, setting off a global game of hide-and-seek on the high seas as Russian billionaires hastily attempt to move their boats to havens such as the Seychelles and the Maldives, where at least one oligarch-owned super-yacht has already arrived ; tracking data show several others on their way.

On Friday, Italian police said they had impounded Lady M Yacht, owned by Alexei Mordashov, Russia’s richest man, in Liguria as part of the European Union’s sanctions against him. A day earlier, French authorities said they had seized a yacht linked to Igor Sechin, a Russian oil tycoon and ally of President Vladimir Putin. The vessel, named Amore Vero, was docked in the coastal town of La Ciotat for repairs. When French customs officials arrived for an inspection, its crew “was preparing an urgent departure,” according to the Associated Press.

Evading authorities takes some savvy — and foresight.

Although boats must be registered, many high-profile customers don’t use their names when they buy one, said Ron Filipkowski, a former federal prosecutor who specialized in asset forfeitures.

“Most of them are in corporations’ names and other people’s names, not the oligarchs themselves,” said Filipkowski, now a defense attorney in Sarasota, Fla. “That’s typically what these people do — put a third party between the law and them so if anything happens, they’ll say, ‘It’s not in my name, technically it belongs to so and so.’”

That can create complications when authorities try to determine ownership, as is the case in Germany, where officials on Thursday disputed a report that they had seized Alisher Usmanov’s 512-foot mega-yacht in Hamburg after the Russian billionaire was sanctioned by the European Union. A spokesperson told the AP that the Dilbar, valued at nearly $600 million, was registered to a holding company in Malta.

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Other tricks include bypassing the numerous vessel tracking sites — among them MarineTraffic and VesselFinder — that keep tabs on ships’ whereabouts in real time. Normally, if you know the name of a boat, you can trace it, thanks to the satellite-powered Automatic Identification System, which monitors the movements of ships around the world.

“But you can turn that system off — everything just blanks out. I know big yachts do it,” said Brad Fisher, a broker with Naos Yachts in Oxnard. “I ran a big yacht from Virginia Beach down to Lauderdale, and then Lauderdale to the Bahamas, and you just turn it off if you don’t want people knowing who’s on board and all that.”

Typically, the “really sketchy” maneuvers are carried out by subcontracted boat captains at the behest of owners, Fisher said.

“When those Russians have a lot of money and can pay a captain cash, he’s going to probably do it and move that vessel for him,” he said. “They’re going to move at night when it’s pitch black. They’re going to turn everything off, they’re going to run blind, they’re going to shut all their electronics off so they can’t receive radio contact.”

‘Bring me a boat tomorrow’: Inside the pandemic yacht boom

Yacht brokers say demand is through the roof, with little to no inventory and multi-month wait lists.

Oct. 22, 2021

Russians accounted for 9% of all super-yacht owners last year, the second-largest ownership country behind the U.S., according to a report this week by SuperYacht Times.

“Clearly their financial contribution to the industry is significant,” said the trade publication, noting an “ethical question” about whether ship builders will continue to work with Russian owners.

Complicating matters is that boat manufacturers sometimes “don’t even know who they’re building for,” said Sarah Salvatori, a spokeswoman with the National Marine Manufacturers Assn. “It’s very, very private.”

Brokers declined to discuss if they had boats under contract to Russian oligarchs — yacht sales have boomed during the pandemic, and the wait time between purchase and new boat delivery can stretch several months — and what would become of deals that were already underway.

“Burgess is complying with all regulations and sanctions being put into action across the territories we work in,” a spokesperson for the luxury yacht broker said. “We comply to all the rules and regulations that the governments have imposed, which are ever changing right now as the situation worsens.”

Adding to yacht owners’ problems: Private citizens are taking matters into their own hands.

Over the weekend, Ukrainian yacht mechanic Taras Ostapchuk tried to sink Lady Anastasia, the $7-million yacht he was working on, in Mallorca. He was arrested and reportedly told authorities that he was upset at the thought that missiles striking Kyiv might have been supplied by the yacht’s owner, a Russian arms tycoon.

“It’s so visceral for people. Nothing seems to stir people’s emotions like a Russian oligarch’s yacht seizure story,” said Filipkowski, the former prosecutor and an ex-Marine. “When I saw that they were going to let private citizens maybe do it for bounties or something, that’s when I was like, ‘Hmm, well, maybe instead of going over there and getting bombed in Ukraine, maybe that would be a cooler job for an ex-military guy: Seize a yacht.’ ”

That’s easier said than done, though, because the kind of wealth that buys mega-yachts can also make them disappear.

“When you’ve got lots of money, you can do lots of silly things that hide things,” said Fisher, the Naos Yachts broker. “There’s a lot of water out there.”

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US says it wants forfeiture of billionaire Russian oligarch's $300 mln superyacht

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Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis

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Fleeing Sanctions, Oligarchs Seek Safe Ports for Superyachts

Russian billionaires have had decades to shield their money and assets in the west from governments that might try to tax or seize them, by michael biesecker • published march 5, 2022 • updated on march 8, 2022 at 2:34 pm.

The massive superyacht Dilbar stretches one-and-a-half football fields in length, about as long as a World War I dreadnought. It boasts two helipads, berths for more than 130 people and a 25-meter swimming pool long enough to accommodate another whole superyacht.

Dilbar was launched in 2016 at a reported cost of more than $648 million. Five years on, its purported owner, the Kremlin-aligned Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, was already dissatisfied and sent the vessel to a German shipyard last fall for a retrofit reportedly costing another couple hundred million dollars.

That’s where she lay in drydock on Thursday when the United States and European Union announced economic sanctions against Usmanov — a metals magnate and early investor in Facebook — over his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine.

“We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets,” President Joe Biden said during his State of the Union speech Tuesday night, addressing the oligarchs. “We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.”

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But actually seizing the behemoth boats could prove challenging. Russian billionaires have had decades to shield their money and assets in the West from governments that might try to tax or seize them.

Several media outlets reported Wednesday that German authorities had impounded Dilbar. But a spokeswoman for Hamburg state’s economy ministry told The Associated Press no such action had yet been taken because it had been unable to establish ownership of the yacht, which is named for Usmanov’s mother.

Dilbar is flagged in the Cayman Islands and registered to a holding company in Malta, two secretive banking havens where the global ultra-rich often park their wealth.

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Still, in the industry that caters to the exclusive club of billionaires and centimillionaires that can afford to buy, crew and maintain superyachts, it is often an open secret who owns what.

Working with the U.K.-based yacht valuation firm VesselsValue, the AP compiled a list of 56 superyachts — generally defined as luxury vessels exceeding 24 meters (79 feet) in length — believed to be owned by a few dozen Kremlin-aligned oligarchs, seaborne assets with a combined market value estimated at more than $5.4 billion.

The AP then used two online services — VesselFinder and MarineTraffic — to plot the last known locations of the yachts as relayed by their onboard tracking beacons.

While many are still anchored at or near sun-splashed playgrounds in the Mediterranean and Caribbean, more than a dozen were underway to or had already arrived in remote ports in small nations such as the Maldives and Montenegro, potentially beyond the reach of Western sanctions. Three are moored in Dubai, where many wealthy Russians have vacation homes.

Another three had gone dark, their transponders last pinging just outside the Bosporus in Turkey — gateway to the Black Sea and the southern Russian ports of Sochi and Novorossiysk.

Graceful, a German-built Russian-flagged superyacht believed to belong to Putin, left a repair yard in Hamburg on Feb. 7, two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. It is now moored in the Russian Baltic port of Kaliningrad, beyond the reach of Western sanctions imposed against him this past week.

Some Russian oligarchs appear to have not gotten the memo to move their superyachts, despite weeks of public warnings of Putin’s planned invasion.

French authorities seized the superyacht Amore Vero on Thursday in the Mediterranean resort town of La Ciotat. The boat is believed to belong to Igor Sechin, a Putin ally who runs Russian oil giant Rosneft, which has been on the U.S. sanctions list since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

The French Finance Ministry said in a statement that customs authorities boarded the 289-foot Amore Vero and discovered its crew was preparing for an urgent departure, even though planned repair work wasn’t finished. The $120 million boat is registered to a company that lists Sechin as its primary shareholder.

On Saturday, Italian financial police in the port of San Remo seized the 132-foot superyacht Lena, which is flagged in the British Virgin Islands. Authorities said the boat belongs to Gennady Timchenko, an oligarch close to Putin and among those sanctioned by the European Union. With an estimated net worth of $16.2 billion, Timchenko is the founder of the Volga Group, which specializes in investments in energy, transport and infrastructure assets.

The 213-foot Lady M was also seized by the Italians while moored in the Riviera port town of Imperia. In a tweet announcing the seizure on Friday, a spokesman for Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the comparatively modest $27 million vessel was the property of sanctioned steel baron Alexei Mordashov, listed as Russia’s wealthiest man with a fortune of about $30 billion.

But Mordashov’s upsized yacht, the 464-foot Nord, was safely at anchor on Friday in the Seychelles, a tropical island chain in the Indian Ocean not under the jurisdiction of U.S. or EU sanctions. Among the world’s biggest superyachts, Nord has a market value of $500 million.

Since Friday, Italy has seized 143 million euros ($156 million) in luxury yachts and villas in some of its most picturesque destinations, including Sardinia, the Ligurian coast and Lake Como.

Most of the Russians on the annual Forbes list of billionaires have not yet been sanctioned by the United States and its allies, and their superyachts are still cruising the world’s oceans.

The evolution of oligarch yachts goes back to the tumultuous decade after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, as state oil and metals industries were sold off at rock-bottom prices, often to politically connected Russian businessmen and bankers who had provided loans to the new Russian state in exchange for the shares.

Russia’s nouveau riche began buying luxury yachts similar in size and expense to those owned by Silicon Valley billionaires, heads of state and royalty. It’s a key marker of status in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and size matters.

“No self-respecting Russian oligarch would be without a superyacht,” said William Browder, a U.S.-born and now London-based financier who worked in Moscow for years before becoming one of the Putin regime’s most vocal foreign critics. “It’s part of the rite of passage to being an oligarch. It’s just a prerequisite.”

As their fortunes ballooned, there was something of an arms race among the oligarchs, with the richest among them accumulating personal fleets of ever more lavish boats.

For example, Russian metals and petroleum magnate Roman Abramovich is believed to have bought or built at least seven of the world’s largest yachts, some of which he has since sold off to other oligarchs.

In 2010, Abramovich launched the Bermuda-flagged Eclipse, which at 533 feet was at the time the world’s longest superyacht. Features include a wood-burning firepit and swimming pool that transforms into a dance floor. Eclipse also boasts its own helicopter hangar and an undersea bay that reportedly holds a mini-sub.

Dennis Causier, a superyacht analyst with VesselsValue, said oligarch boats often include secret security measures worthy of a Bond villain, including underwater escape hatches, bulletproof windows and armored panic rooms.

“Eclipse is equipped with all sorts of special features, including missile launchers and self-defense systems on board,” Causier said. “It has a secret submarine evacuation area and things like that.”

Eclipse was soon eclipsed by Azzam, purportedly owned by the emir of Abu Dhabi, which claimed the title of longest yacht when it was launched in 2013. Three years after that, Usmanov launched Dilbar, which replaced another slightly smaller yacht by the same name. The new Dilbar is the world’s largest yacht by volume.

Abramovich, whose fortune is estimated at $12.4 billion, fired back last year by launching Solaris. While not as long as Eclipse or as big as Dilbar, the $600 million Bermuda-flagged boat is possibly even more luxurious. Eight stories tall, Solaris features a sleek palisade of broad teak-covered decks suitable for hosting a horde of well-heeled partygoers.

But no boat is top dog for long. At least 20 superyachts are reported to be under construction in various Northern European shipyards, including a $500 million superyacht being built for the American billionaire Jeff Bezos.

“It’s about ego,” Causier said. “They all want to have the best, the longest, the most valuable, the newest, the most luxurious.”

But, he added, the escalating U.S. and EU sanctions on Putin-aligned oligarchs and Russian banks have sent a chill through the industry, with boatbuilders and staff worried they won’t be paid. It can cost upwards of $50 million a year to crew, fuel and maintain a superyacht.

The crash of the ruble and the tanking of Moscow stock market have depleted the fortunes of Russia’s elite, with several people dropping off the list of Forbes billionaires last week. Causier said he expects some oligarch superyachts will soon quietly be listed by brokers at fire-sale prices.

The 237-foot Stella Maris, which was seen by an AP journalist docked this past week in Nice, France, was believed to be owned by Rashid Sardarov, a Russian billionaire oil and gas magnate. After publication of an earlier version of this story, AP was contacted Sunday by yacht broker Joan Plana Palao, who said his company represents a U.S. citizen from California who purchased the Stella Maris last month. He declined to disclose the name of the buyer or the person from whom the boat had been purchased.

On Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a new round of sanctions that included a press release touting Usmanov’s close ties to Putin and photos of Dilbar and the oligarch’s private jet, a custom-built 209-foot Airbus A340-300 passenger liner. Treasury said Usmanov’s aircraft is believed to have cost up to $500 million and is named Bourkhan, after his father.

Usmanov, whose fortune has recently shrunk to about $17 billion, criticized the sanctions.

“I believe that such a decision is unfair and the reasons employed to justify the sanctions are a set of false and defamatory allegations damaging my honor, dignity and business reputation,” he said in a statement issued through the website of the International Fencing Federation, of which he has served as president since 2008.

Abramovich has not yet been sanctioned. Members of the British Parliament have criticized Prime Minister Boris Johnson for not going after Abramovich’s U.K.-based assets, which include the professional soccer club Chelsea. Under mounting pressure, the oligarch announced this past week he would sell the $2.5 billion team and give the net proceeds “for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine.”

Meanwhile, location transponders showed Solaris moored in Barcelona, Spain, on Saturday. Eclipse set sail from St. Maarten late Thursday and is underway in the Caribbean Sea, destination undisclosed.

Associated Press writer Aritz Parra in Madrid contributed to this report.

Follow AP Investigative Reporter Michael Biesecker at twitter.com/mbieseck

Contact AP’s global investigative team at [email protected].

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