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.
In Fiji, the nation’s Supreme Court lifted a stay order
which had prevented the U.S. from seizing the superyacht Amadea.
Chief Justice Kamal Kumar ruled that based on the evidence,
the chances of defense lawyers mounting an appeal that the top court would hear
were “nil to very slim.”
Kumar said he accepted arguments that keeping the superyacht
berthed in Fiji at Lautoka harbor was “costing the Fijian government dearly.”
“The fact that U.S. authorities have undertaken to pay costs
incurred by the Fijian government is totally irrelevant,” the judge found. He
said the Amadea “sailed into Fiji waters without any permit and most probably
to evade prosecution by the United States of America.”
The U.S. removed the motorized vessel within an hour or two
of the court’s ruling, possibly to ensure the yacht didn’t get entangled in any
further legal action.
In early May, the Justice Department issued a statement
saying the Amadea had been seized in Fiji, but that turned out to be premature
after lawyers appealed.
It wasn’t immediately clear where the U.S. intended to take the Amadea, which the FBI has linked to the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.
Fiji Director of Public Prosecutions Christopher Pryde said
unresolved questions of money laundering and the ownership of the Amadea need
to be decided in the U.S.
“The decision acknowledges Fiji’s commitment to respecting
international mutual assistance requests and Fiji’s international obligations,”
Pryde said.
In court documents, the FBI linked the Amadea to the Kerimov
family through their alleged use of code names while aboard and the purchase of
items such as a pizza oven and a spa bed. The ship 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.
The 106-meter (348-foot) -long vessel, about the length of a
football field, features a live lobster tank, a hand-painted piano, a swimming
pool and a large helipad.
Lawyer Feizal Haniff, who represented paper owner Millemarin
Investments, had argued the owner was another wealthy Russian who, unlike
Kerimov, doesn’t face sanctions.
The U.S. acknowledged that paperwork appeared to show Eduard
Khudainatov was the owner but said he was also the paper owner of a second and
even larger superyacht, the Scheherazade, which has been linked to Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
The U.S. questioned whether Khudainatov could really afford
two superyachts worth a total of more than $1 billion.
“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.
Court documents say the Amadea switched off its transponder
soon after Russia invaded Ukraine and sailed from the Caribbean through the
Panama Canal to Mexico, arriving with over $100,000 in cash. It then sailed
thousands of miles (kilometers) across the Pacific Ocean to Fiji.
The Justice Department said it didn’t believe paperwork
showing the Amadea was next headed to the Philippines, arguing it was really
destined for Vladivostok or elsewhere in Russia.
The department said it found a text message on a crew
member’s phone saying, “We’re not going to Russia” followed by a “shush” emoji.
The U.S. said Kerimov secretly bought the Cayman
Island-flagged Amadea last year through various shell companies. The FBI said a
search warrant in Fiji turned up emails showing that Kerimov’s children were
aboard the ship this year and that the crew used code names — G0 for Kerimov,
G1 for his wife, G2 for his daughter and so on.
Kerimov made a fortune investing in Russian gold producer
Polyus, with Forbes magazine putting his net worth at $14.5 billion. The U.S.
first sanctioned him in 2018 after he was detained in France and accused of
money laundering there, sometimes arriving with suitcases stuffed with 20
million euros.
Khudainatov is the former chairman and chief executive of
Rosneft, the state-controlled Russian oil and gas company. -AP
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