Miami (AFP) \u2013 A luxurious superyacht seized by the US authorities from sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov is headed to the auction block.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 348-foot (106-metre) Amadea has a helipad, pool, jacuzzi, gym, spa, beauty salon and eight staterooms that can accommodate 16 guests, according to amadeaauction.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The yacht, which has been valued at more than $300 million, was seized from the Russian oligarch in Fiji in April 2022 and is currently berthed in San Diego, California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The auction is being held by National Maritime Services, a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, company. Sealed bids are being accepted until September 10 and require a $10 million initial bid deposit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The yacht is headed to the auction block after a US judge in March dismissed a competing claim to ownership of the vessel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another wealthy Russian, Eduard Khudainatov, the former head of Russian state oil and gas company Rosneft, claimed in a New York court to be the rightful owner of the Amadea but his claim was dismissed by District Judge Dale Ho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to prosecutors, Khudainatov was a “straw owner” of the Amadea and the true owner was Kerimov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin who was sanctioned by the United States in 2018 and again in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following the invasion, the Justice Department under then-president Joe Biden began seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs close to Putin, an operation known as Task Force KleptoCapture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Donald Trump disbanded the task force after taking office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US Congress passed legislation last year that allows for the sale of seized Russian assets, with the proceeds going to provide humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Miami (AFP) \u2013 A luxurious superyacht seized by the US authorities from sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov is headed to the auction block. The 348-foot (106-metre) Amadea has a helipad, pool, jacuzzi, gym, spa, beauty salon and eight staterooms that can accommodate 16 guests, according to amadeaauction.com. The yacht, which has been valued at more […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,2622,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest","category-russia-asia","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10302"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}