U.S. sanctions enforcement unit disbanded by Trump wins right to auction Amadea yacht owned by Russian billionaire senator Suleiman Kerimov

U.S. prosecutors have been granted the right to auction off the Amadea yacht, which is linked to Russian senator Suleiman Kerimov, according to a report by the Financial Times. The luxury vessel, valued at over $300 million, was seized in 2022 as part of sanctions enforcement.

As of Friday, March 14, the yacht remained docked in San Diego, California, where it was moved after being detained in May 2022. U.S. prosecutors maintain that Suleiman Kerimov was the rightful owner of the yacht — a claim he has denied. Instead, Eduard Khudainatov, the former CEO of Russia’s state-owned oil corporation Rosneft, asserted that he was the legal owner. However, the court determined that Khudainatov was only a front owner, clearing the way for the Department of Justice to proceed with the yacht’s auction.

Adam Ford, a lawyer representing Khudainatov, called the decision “legally and factually flawed,” adding that he would file an appeal and challenge “any illegitimate sale or transfer through international legal channels,” as per the FT report.

The seizure and sale of the Amadea would be one of the biggest successes of the KleptoCapture task force — a unit formed in March 2022 to track down and confiscate the assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs. It may also be the last. In early February 2025, following the inauguration of President Donald Trump, the task force was disbanded.

Analysts told the FT that the Department of Justice may still continue cases pursued by KleptoCapture if the confiscated assets hold significant value and carry high maintenance costs. In summer 2024, a Bloomberg report revealed that maintaining the Amadea yacht had cost U.S. authorities approximately $600,000 — including $360,000 in crew salaries, as well as $75,000 in fuel and $165,000 for technical maintenance costs.

However, cases that had not yet resulted in formal charges before KleptoCapture’s dissolution are likely to be dropped.

The Amadea was detained on April 14, 2022, after entering Fiji’s exclusive economic zone without customs clearance. On May 3, 2022, a Fijian court authorized its confiscation. The 106-meter yacht boasts a helicopter pad, a swimming pool, a lobster aquarium, and a hand-painted grand piano, according to media reports.

Kerimov, a senator in the Russian Federation Council — Russia’s upper house of parliament — first faced U.S. sanctions in 2018, with authorities citing allegations of money laundering in France and a failure to pay €400 million ($432 million) in taxes on luxury villas.

He was then sanctioned by the EU and UK on March 15, 2022 — several weeks after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In its decision, the EU described Kerimov as part of Vladimir Putin's “inner circle of oligarchs” and pointed to his attendance at a Kremlin meeting with Putin and other billionaires in late February to discuss the impact of Western sanctions. The U.S. Treasury then blocked over $1 billion in assets linked to Kerimov held in the Delaware-based Heritage Trust in late June and expanded its sanctions against the oligarch in November that year.

Kerimov controls Nafta Moscow, a major Russian financial and industrial group, and has an estimated net worth of $9.12 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His family also previously held a controlling stake in Polyus Gold, Russia's largest gold producer.