Russian superyacht Amadea arrives in Honolulu from Fiji

By AUDREY McAVOY Associated Press

15:36 JST, June 17, 2022

HONOLULU (AP) — A Russian-owned superyacht seized by the United States arrived in Honolulu Harbor on Thursday flying an American flag.

The U.S. last week won a legal battle in Fiji to take the $325 million vessel and immediately sailed it to Hawaii.

The FBI has linked the Amadea to the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov. The U.S. said Kerimov secretly bought the Cayman Island-flagged vessel last year through various shell companies.

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 in Ukraine.

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.

The 348-foot-long (106-meter-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 Millemarin Investments, the owner on paper, had argued the owner was another wealthy Russian who, unlike Kerimov, doesn’t face sanctions.