For those in the market for a luxury superyacht, the United States government is looking to offload a 348-foot vessel with six decks, a helipad and gilded interiors.
It can be yours for a bargain. The catch? A lawyer may advise against steering it into international waters.
The U.S. government seized the gleaming yacht three years ago when it was docked at a marina in Fiji, with local assistance. The U.S. government argued that the vessel, called Amadea, Latin for “God’s love,” was owned by Suleiman Kerimov, a Russian oligarch under U.S. sanctions with a net worth of $16.4 billion, according to Forbes, and ties to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
But on paper, the owner was a different wealthy Russian: Eduard Khudainatov, a onetime pig breeder who had not been sanctioned by the United States. Mr. Khudainatov’s claim on Amadea began a legal battle that has delayed the yacht’s sale and could pose problems for its eventual owner.
When the United States seized the ship in 2022, investigators argued that a Monaco-based yacht brokerage had orchestrated the sale of the Amadea the previous year, from Mr. Khudainatov to Mr. Kerimov. The U.S. government showed enough evidence to persuade Fijian authorities to seize the yacht and then to hand it over to the U.S.
But Mr. Khudainatov’s lawyers have said that their client wants the yacht back, a potential problem for anyone who wants to buy the Amadea at auction for its advertised “world-cruising autonomy.” The U.S. government’s marketing for the yacht boasts that its “over 8,000 nautical miles of range and full helideck means Amadea is built to roam far beyond the typical seasonal ports.”
But a statement issued last week by a spokesman for Mr. Khudainatov’s lead lawyer in the case, Adam Ford, suggested that the vessel would not have a bright future if it were to venture into foreign waters.
“We doubt it will attract any rational buyer at fair market price because ownership can and will be challenged in courts outside the United States,” the statement said.
The Amadea is nearly the length of a football field and was designed to cruise across the archipelagos that serve as playgrounds for the wealthy.
It was built by Lürssen, a German shipbuilding company, and the polished dark wood interiors were designed by François Zuretti, who once worked on the interiors of palaces in the Middle East. The Amadea features eight staterooms, a lobster tank, an infinity pool and a hand-painted mural of Renaissance-style clouds above the dining table. The vessel sleeps up to 16 passengers, as well as the three dozen crew members needed to run it and deliver luxury service to passengers. Fastened to the bow is a five-ton stainless-steel Art Deco albatross figurehead sculpted by Willem Lenssinck, a Dutch artist.
The superyacht is now docked in San Diego and will be delivered to the highest bidder “as is, where is.” But the Amadea is unlikely to fetch a price near the $300 million that it was once valued at, according to court filings. The threat of lawsuits will probably limit the number of interested buyers, said Paul B. Stephan, a law professor at the University of Virginia who has testified before Congress in support of foreign sanctions.
“The majority of countries in the world that are not sanctioning Russia, they could easily be open to the claim that what the United States did was invalid,” Mr. Stephan said, adding: “Whoever buys the yacht would be buying a lawsuit in a lot of ports.”
But, Mr. Stephan said, the seizure of the yacht in 2022 was in itself a win for the U.S. government. That year, the Justice Department formed a task force called KleptoCapture to target the fortunes of Russia’s elite — many of whom are close with Mr. Putin and have their money stashed around the world — in an effort to pressure him to end the war in Ukraine.
“The Amadea is the perfect example of an asset that must have meant something to Kerimov,” given its value, Mr. Stephan said. How many others, he added, would spend hundreds of millions of dollars for “this very expensive, gaudy, bad-taste display?”
During the Biden administration, KleptoCapture promoted its seizures, and Congress sought to use the assets to fund aid to Ukraine.
“This seizure of Suleiman Kerimov’s vessel, the Amadea, nearly 8,000 miles from Washington, D.C., symbolizes the reach of the Department of Justice as we continue to work with our global partners to disrupt the sense of impunity of those who have supported corruption and the suffering of so many,” Andrew Adams, the head of KleptoCapture, said at the time. (The task force was disbanded after President Trump came into office.)
In some cases, the threat of property seizure was enough: Some of Russia’s elite sold off or worked to shield their assets. But the seizure of assets like the Amadea posed unique challenges.
Mr. Khudainatov, the Russian national who holds the title to the Amadea, filed a claim in federal court in 2023 to stop the forfeiture. The sale of the yacht was postponed until this past March, when the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the Amadea was forfeited to the United States. In the meantime, maintenance and docking fees in San Diego have cost the United States nearly $1 million per month, according to a court filing last year.
“It’s sort of like the dog that caught the car,” Mr. Stephan said of the U.S. government’s predicament. “Once they got the yacht, they then had to deal with a very difficult issue: What do we do with it?”
Mr. Khudainatov’s lawyers have appealed, but the auction is moving forward.
Interested buyers must make a $10 million initial deposit, but there is no fee to place a bid. The bids will remain sealed until the auction closes on Sept. 10.