A #YachtWatch Update: Amadea One Step Closer to Being Sold
Will the USG be allowed to sell the $300 million-vessel and use the funds for Ukraine?
ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT
US prosecutors last week officially filed a petition to sell seized Russian yacht Amadea. I had previously reported that they planned to do so, but the court ordered the two parties to hash out who would pay maintenance fees, which at the time were averaging a million dollars a month.
The US wasn’t too keen on paying that amount while the legal back and forth continued. The US claims sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleyman Kerimov is the owner of Amadea. Russian national Eduard Khudainatov insists he is. He is refusing to pay maintenance fees, though, and would really like his yacht back.
The new filing lists slightly lower maintenance costs of $600,000 a month, or $7 million annually. Still, the US told the court the cost is “excessive,” and thus requested permission to sell the yacht while the civil forfeiture case continues, since it is likely to take a long time. If the yacht were sold, the issue would be forfeiture of the proceeds of the sale, not the yacht itself.
Khudainatov doesn’t like that arrangement. He says he wants the boat. But prosecutors were quick to point out that in other court filings, Khudainatov referred to Amadea as an investment yacht and that his plan all along was to sell it. Why not sell it now?
Khudainatov hasn’t responded yet, likely because he is trying to keep his story straight. After all, he claims to be the owner of three Russian mega yachts. The other two are Crescent and Scheherazade, which has been linked to Putin.
From $1 million a month to $600,000 a month
What’s with the cheap maintenance? My guess is they have cut down maintenance of Amadea to the bare minimum, just enough to keep the yacht safe.
This past week, I visited seized Russian yacht Meridian A (formerly known as Valerie) and I wonder if she offers a cautionary tale. I saw a few crew working on the vessel, including someone power scrubbing the hull. However, to the best of my knowledge, it has been at least two years since the yacht was taken out of the water for a proper cleaning (my understanding is a vessel like that typically would be taken out of the water once a year). Even from a distance, I could see the algae buildup on the hull.
Is Amadea also getting minimal maintenance? I don’t know, but if someone wants to fly me to San Diego to find out, let me know. But if the costs have come down from one million to $600,000, obviously there have been some cuts.
Nigerian Corruption Vs. Russian Corruption
To bolster their case that Amadea should be sold, prosecutors alluded to a different corruption and money laundering case, this one involving Nigeria and a yacht named Galactica Star. The vessel was owned by Nigerian businessman Kola Aluko, who was charged with cheating Nigeria out of $1.8 billion in oil sales. He and another defendant laundered that money in the United States and used it to buy Galactica Star and other assets. The scheme was uncovered thanks to the Panama Papers.
That yacht was costing $170,000 a month to maintain. The court agreed the amount was excessive and allowed for the sale of the vessel while the case was ongoing. Galactica Star was sold for $42 million.
In the Amadea case, prosecutors pointed to the Galactica Star case and said, yo, if $170,000 is excessive, $600,000 is most definitely excessive.
Will the sale go through? It would bring in a pretty penny. Amadea is worth an estimated $300 million. Although, as I have pointed out before, it is unlikely it would bring in that amount. Not many people can afford such a yacht and even fewer wish to cruise around on the yacht of a pissed off Russian billionaire.
But if it does sell, and Khudainatov fails to get the forfeiture case dismissed, is it possible the money from the sale of Amadea would be transferred to Ukraine? President Biden has expressed interest in doing so, and it sure seems to me like justice.
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of stories you should be reading
UNITED STATES
New Docs Reveal How Trump Lawyers Sought ‘Chaos’ to Force SCOTUS to Anoint Trump (Talking Points Memo)
Russia’s Advances on Space-Based Nuclear Weapon Draw US Concerns (NY Times)
EUROPE
EU moves toward using profits from frozen Russian assets for Ukraine (Politico)
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
