The mystery of the owner of the Russian superyacht has just been confiscated by the US

The Amadea train costs 325 million USD to close and add many millions of dollars per year to run. When not at sea, this superyacht needs the caring hands of a team of 24 sailors and engineers.

In a lawsuit aimed at determining which Russian tycoon was the real owner of Amadea, the captain wrote in an application to the Fiji court that without proper maintenance, the ship would “rapidly deteriorate” and only remain. “The hull of the ship cannot be resold to anyone”.

The cost of keeping this superyacht in port alone costs up to 1.1 million USD/month. “There are very few buyers who can afford the maintenance costs, let alone the purchase price of the ship,” the captain said.

The identity of that buyer will soon be decided in a US court. This is because on the morning of June 7, Amadea left for the US after the Fiji court ruled in favor of the country.

One oil tycoon, two superyachts

At the request of the United States, Amadea was seized by Fiji during a trip to the South Pacific. Before leaving for the US on the morning of June 7, it spent weeks in port waiting for the outcome of a dispute between the US Department of Justice and Millemarin Investments, a company in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) in the name of the owner. owned Amadea.

The lawyer representing Mr. Eduard Khudainatov, a Russian oil tycoon, confirmed that his client was Amadea’s owner. They assert that Mr. Khudainatov is the founder of the trust fund that holds ultimate ownership of Amadea through a series of offshore companies.

But US officials accused Khudainatov of being a stand-in. They claim that Amadea really belongs to one of Russia’s richest tycoons, gold industry magnate Suleiman Kerimov, who is under Western sanctions.

The Fiji court case is significant because the US has also questioned whether Mr. Khudainatov may be replacing the owner of another more precious superyacht: the valuable Scheherazade. 700 million USDconfiscated in Tuscany, Italy after the outbreak of fighting in Ukraine.

Mr. Khudainatov is said to be holding Scheherazade through another system of offshore companies, but this character has not yet given confirmation. Italian police are verifying information that the true owner of this ship is also subject to Western sanctions.

The total value of these two superyachts is one billion USD.

The US authorities acknowledged that Mr. Khudainatov was “rich”, but they said “there is no basis to believe that he has the financial resources to buy both Amadea and Scheherazade, nor do they have any explanation for the fact that a person owns a property.” owns many superyachts of this size,” according to court documents.

Before that, Mr. Khudainatov had not been punished by any country. But on June 3, this character was blacklisted by the European Union (EU) on the basis that he benefits from a large-scale Russian oil business. The EU did not mention his connection to the two superyachts.

The United States and Britain have not yet taken action to punish Mr. Khudainatov.

Interlaced links

The connection between Mr. Khudainatov, a businessman who once raised pigs, and the Kremlin dates back to 2000. Having Kazakh blood, he is described as a friend of former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin.

It was the same former Russian deputy prime minister who succeeded Khudainatov as CEO of Russian oil giant Rosneft in 2013.

Khudainatov’s oil business has acquired a significant stake in energy companies and their mining licenses from Rosneft, according to the EU.

Rosneft also paid 9.6 billion USD for Mr. Khudainatov to acquire a company that owns an oil field in Siberia.

The link that connects Mr. Khudainatov to the Amadea yacht is more intricate.

The lawyer representing Millemarine Investments, a BVI company in the name of Amadea’s owner, said the company was established in June 2021. Just a month later, Millemarine Investments became the new paper owner of the ship.

Millemarine is again owned by Invest International Finance, also based in the BVI. Invest International Finance has only one shareholder: A business in Switzerland called the Boltenko Foundation.

The Boltenko Foundation is run by Olga Boltenko, an international wealth and tax advisor. Ms. Boltenko is licensed to practice law in England and Wales and has worked for leading law firms in the UK.

On June 3, Ms. Boltenko said she and her business no longer represent Millemarine Investments or the September Fund.

But in May, while still representing Khudainatov, Boltenko revealed in a court document that her law firm was a trustee of the September Fund, a trust established in December 2019. The person who put the assets in this fund, also known as the trustee, is Mr. Khudainatov.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Justice confirmed that the Amadea ship had been in Kerimov’s hands since the fall of 2021 in a “behind-the-scenes arrangement in Russia”. Evidence is the content of FBI interviews with crew members and employees in the yachting industry.

These crew members said there were “many measures in place to ensure privacy” for the yacht’s guests. Each member of the family is assigned an alias: Mr. Kerimov is G-0, his wife is G-1.

When shown photos of Mr. Kerimov with relatives, these people confirmed that the family in the photo had been on a cruise ship, most recently in February in St. Barts and St. Maarten in the Caribbean. During a four-month voyage this year, Mr. Kerimov’s family were the “only guests” on board.