The Amadea is a $325 million super yacht docked in the U.S. Pacific coast port of San Diego, seized by the U.S. government as the property of sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov.
Now, another Russian tycoon is fighting in U.S. federal court to recover the luxury vessel, claiming that he is the Amadea’s real owner.
A Manhattan federal court on January 10 is set to hold an initial pretrial conference in the U.S. government's civil forfeiture action against the Amadea, which Eduard Khudainatov, a former CEO of the Russian state oil giant Rosneft, has filed an ownership claim to in the case.
An FBI affidavit describes Khudainatov as a proxy used to conceal Kerimov’s ownership, and a central issue in the action will be determining which of the two is the luxury vessel's actual owner.
The Amadea is not the only super yacht for which Khudainatov, who has been sanctioned by the European Union but not the United States, is alleged to be a straw owner. Khudainatov also says he owns a $700 million yacht, the Scheherazade, impounded in Italy that Russian opposition activists allege is really owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In addition, the 63-year-old tycoon says he owns the Crescent, a 135-meter super yacht that has been described as the Scheherazade’s “sister ship.” That yacht was seized in Spain and is alleged to belong to Kremlin-insider and current Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin.
A spokesman from Vermillion Advisors, a U.S. strategic communications firm that Khudainatov has hired, told RFE/RL its client is the true owner of all three impounded super yachts.
The case comes amid efforts to punish Russia’s ruling elite by targeting assets they control in the West -- often through complex legal structures and proxy owners -- that the United States and EU members have ramped up following Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
'A Clean, Unsanctioned Straw Owner'
The Amadea was handed over to U.S. authorities in June 2022 following a court ruling in Fiji, which had seized it two months earlier. It was transported to San Diego, where it has remained ever since.
The vessel is described by the website SuperYachtFan as “among the largest yachts globally” with “unparalleled luxury and comfort for up to 18 guests.” With a crew of 36, the Amadea boasts a helicopter pad, a pool, a jacuzzi, and “a stunning winter garden on the sun deck.”
Despite Khudainatov’s claims to ownership, the U.S. government argues the luxury vessel in reality belongs to Kerimov, who has close ties to Putin and was hit with U.S. sanctions in 2018 in response to Russia’s “malign activity around the globe.”
While the Manhattan federal court case focuses on the 106-meter Amadea, U.S. authorities have cited Khudainatov’s alleged role as a straw owner of a second super yacht linked to Putin himself.
That vessel, the Scheherazade, was seized by Italy in May 2022 and remains docked there.
“The fact that Khudainatov is being held out as the owner of two of the largest super yachts 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 of these vessels,” an FBI affidavit filed in the Fiji court proceedings stated.
In addition, a June 2022 investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and Forbes magazine concluded that Khudainatov was also the straw owner of a 135-meter super yacht called the Crescent that is allegedly owned by Sechin, one of Putin’s closest associates since the president’s days in the St. Petersburg mayoral administration in the 1990s.
The $600 million Crescent was impounded in Spain in March 2022.
'More Than $1 Billion'
Khudainatov has long been associated with Sechin, and Forbes last year estimated he was worth “at least $2 billion,” attributing the origins of his wealth to “decades-long relationships with Putin and Sechin.”
In October 2023, U.S. federal prosecutor Damian Williams and the Justice Department’s unit tasked with enforcing sanctions imposed after Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine filed a civil-forfeiture complaint against the Amadea.
The complaint alleged the yacht was improved and maintained in violation of applicable sanctions against Kerimov and those acting on his behalf.
Khudainatov, however, argues he and his British Virgin Islands-based company Millemarin Investments Ltd. are the Amadea’s real owners. His spokesman told RFE/RL that he commissioned the design and construction of the yacht in 2012.
An FBI affidavit submitted in the Fiji proceedings, however, stated that based on the interviews within the yacht-brokerage community, an inspection of the Amadea was arranged for Kerimov in late 2020 or early 2021, and Kerimov toured the yacht personally.
Several Amadea crew members identified Kerimov as the true owner of the yacht, and others described seeing Kerimov's family using it on multiple occasions, the FBI affidavit stated.
The affidavit alleges the Amadea was the subject of a 2021 sale to Kerimov by a company with a history of “concealing yacht ownership behind nested shell companies and listing a straw, unsanctioned individual as the beneficial owner behind the shell companies, in order to conceal the true beneficial owner.”
The FBI special agent said in the affidavit that he believes Khudainatov became a straw beneficial owner of the Amadea in order to conceal Kerimov's ownership.
Khudainatov’s lawyers claimed in a court filing that the Amadea had been rented to Kerimov’s daughter, Gulnara Kerimova, but that her father was not present during these trips. They also described Khudainatov’s “investments” in “over $1 billion in megayachts alone” as “a fraction of his overall wealth.”
The Scheherazade And The Crescent
Evidence attached to the FBI affidavit in the Fiji proceedings shows the Amadea was managed by the Monaco-based Imperial Yachts, which was hit with sanctions last year by the U.S. Treasury Department. The department said the company “provides yacht-related services to Russia’s elites, including those in President Putin’s inner circle.” Washington also imposed sanctions on the Russian CEO of Imperial Yachts, Yevgeny Kochman.
Imperial Yachts also oversaw the construction of the 140-meter Scheherazade, which the team of imprisoned Russian opposition politician Aleksei Navalny claimed belongs to Putin.
In August 2023, Maria Pevchikh, the investigations director of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, published a series of posts on Twitter (now called X) about a yacht called the Graceful, an 82-meter, $100 million vessel in which, according to U.S. authorities, Putin “has an interest.” In a photo purporting to show Putin’s office aboard the Graceful, she identified a model on a shelf in the background as a representation of the Scheherazade.
When it was impounded in May 2022, the Scheherazade was owned by a Khudainatov-controlled company in the Marshall Islands called Bielor Asset Ltd.
Imperial Yachts told RFE/RL in March 2022 that it “has no relationship with Bielor” and that the company’s involvement with the Scheherazade ended with its delivery in June 2020.
A spokesman for Khudainatov told RFE/RL that the Russian tycoon “owns the Scheherezade.”
The spokesman said Khudainatov “does not have any relationship” with Putin. The Kremlin did not respond to a request for comment.
An earlier RFE/RL investigation found that a senior Russian crew member on the Scheherazade previously worked for a Russian yachting company that secured millions of dollars in contracts from the Federal Protection Service (FSO), the agency responsible for Putin's personal security and whose officers have allegedly served on the crew of the yacht.
While impounded, the Scheherazade is being refitted by an unnamed, but sanctioned, owner, according to an August 6 report by the Financial Times.
