yacht russia

Here are the superyachts seized from Russian oligarchs

As part of an international pressure campaign on Russia, authorities from around the world have seized more than a half-dozen superyachts belonging to billionaire oligarchs allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The yacht seizures since the Feb. 24 invasion are "just the beginning," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in March, as an international task force worked to identify further assets that can be seized or frozen.

“The Justice Department will be relentless in our efforts to hold accountable those who facilitate the death and destruction we are witnessing in Ukraine,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said of the ongoing efforts in May.

Here are the superyachts government officials have seized since Russia invaded Ukraine last month.

The Justice Department announced May 5 that the Fijian government had seized billionaire oligarch Suleiman Kerimov 's 348-foot yacht Amadea. The vessel, which is valued at more than $300 million , arrived in Fiji last month. Kerimov, who's worth an estimated $14 billion and has ties to the Russian government, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department over alleged money laundering in 2018.

Special features on the sprawling yacht include a helipad, infinity pool, a jacuzzi and multiple bars, according to a report in Boat International . It can accommodate 16 overnight guests in addition to 36 crew members, the report said.

In April, Spanish law-enforcement officials seized a 255-foot yacht called the Tango, which Justice Department says is owned by oligarch Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg is an aluminum magnate who the Treasury Department says has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Tango is worth an estimated $90 million, prosecutors said , and Vekselberg allegedly purchased it through shell companies. The 11-year-old yacht has seven staterooms and reportedly includes amenities such as a pool, gym and beauty salon .

Authorities in Italy seized a 215-foot superyacht called the Lady M this month. It's owned by Alexei Mordashov, Russia's richest businessman, and it’s estimated to be worth $27 million . The vessel, which requires a crew of 14, has six guest cabins , a pool and a gym.

But it pales in comparison to another of Mordashov's yachts, the $500 million Nord . The 464-foot vessel, which has two helipads and a waterfall and can accommodate 36 guests, was anchored this month in the Seychelles, where the U.S. and European Union sanctions don’t apply.

Italian officials also seized the 132-foot superyacht Lena, owned by the energy magnate Gennady Timchenko. Estimated to be worth $8 million, it has five cabins and can accommodate 10 guests.

SY A — short for Sailing Yacht A — is one of the world's largest superyachts. Valued at over $440 million, the 469-foot vessel, owned by the fertilizer magnate Andrey Melnichenko, has eight decks, multiple elevators, an underwater observation area and the world's tallest masts . It was seized in the Italian port of Trieste.

Authorities in Spain seized Sergei Chemezov's Valerie, a 279-foot superyacht that had been moored in Barcelona. Chemezov , a former KGB officer, heads the state conglomerate Rostec. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez touted the seizure on La Sexta television. “We are talking about a yacht that we estimate is worth $140 million,” Sanchez said.

Officials in France announced this month that they had seized the 289-foot Amore Vero, which was undergoing repairs in a shipyard near Marseille. When they arrived, authorities said, they found the crew preparing for an urgent departure, even though the repair work was scheduled to last through April. The $120 million boat, which has seven cabins , is linked to Igor Sechin, described by the U.S. Treasury Department as a close ally of Putin's.

Dareh Gregorian is a politics reporter for NBC News.

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Superyacht abandoned by a Russian fertilizer billionaire has a new secret owner, who got it for a huge discount

The Alfa Nero superyacht, which has been abandoned in the Caribbean for more than two years, has a new owner.

The 267-foot (81-meter) vessel, complete with a baby grand piano and a swimming pool that turns into a helipad, sold for $40 million last week, said Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the US. He declined to name the buyer, citing a confidentiality agreement.

The sale marks the latest attempt to end the years-long Alfa Nero saga. A Russian oligarch abandoned the luxury yacht in Antigua in March 2022, after being sanctioned by the US Treasury. Then tech billionaire Eric Schmidt tried buying it at auction, only to  give up  when the sale became a legal quagmire. 

Meanwhile, the vessel sat in Antigua’s Falmouth Harbour being tended to by a skeleton crew and costing over a $100,000 a month to maintain.

At $40 million, the new Alfa Nero owner will end up paying far less than the $67.6 million that Schmidt, a former Google CEO, had offered last year. Sanctioned Russian fertilizer billionaire Andrey Guryev had originally bought the Alfa Nero in 2014 for $120 million, the US Treasury Department said — which Guryev denies. 

His daughter, Yulia Gurieva-Motlokhov, later stepped forward to claim ownership of the yacht, triggering a legal dispute.

“It’s not worth 40 million, it’s worth way more,” said Richard Higgins, a broker with Northrop & Johnson who represented the undisclosed buyer. “They needed to get the boat sold.”

Higgins said the new owner is European and will likely put the Alfa Nero on the charter market.

The Alfa Nero is among more than a dozen superyachts pinned down in ports around the globe after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 brought a series of economic sanctions against Russian oligarchs. Many of the vessels have been stuck in limbo amid costly legal disputes and racking up maintenance costs.

The Phi superyacht has been moored in London since 2022 while other vessels are stuck in Italy and Spain. There’s also the Amadea, a 348-foot ship with a lobster tank and hand-painted clouds on the dining-room ceiling, which was seized from its alleged oligarch owner in Fiji and now sits in California. Last month, a New York court denied the US government’s request to sell the Amadea, Voice of America  reported .

Alfa Nero’s new owner “is not included in the sanctions list of any country or institution,” Ambassador Sanders said.

The latest attempt to sell the Alfa Nero was brokered through a private contract, the port manager, Darwin Telemaque, said in a phone call. He also declined to name the buyer. Telemaque expects the proceeds will cover the millions of dollars in port fees the Alfa Nero has racked up.

“I am very happy that the ship is no longer the responsibility of the people and the government of Antigua and Barbuda,” he said. 

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A 459-Foot Mystery in a Tuscan Port: Is It a Russian’s Superyacht?

As European authorities go after the luxury assets of oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin, a superyacht cloaked in secrecy has come under investigation.

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By Michael Forsythe ,  Gaia Pianigiani and David D. Kirkpatrick

From Germany’s North Sea ports to the French Riviera, open season has been declared on superyachts. Across Europe, authorities are hunting down luxury vessels tied to Russian oligarchs in the effort to inflict pain on President Vladimir V. Putin’s allies.

In Marina di Carrara, a small Italian town on the Tuscan coast, one of the world’s biggest, newest and most expensive superyachts — called the Scheherazade — is under scrutiny by the Italian police. Almost as long as a U.S. guided-missile destroyer, it dominates the waterfront.

The yacht, estimated by the website SuperYachtFan to cost about $700 million, has two helicopter decks and is studded with satellite domes. Inside, photos supplied by a former crew member show, is a swimming pool with a retractable cover that converts to a dance floor. Then there’s the fully equipped gym and the gold-plated fixtures in the bathrooms.

In the rarefied world of the biggest superyachts ( only 14 that are at least 140 meters, or 459 feet long), the Scheherazade is alone in that no likely owner has been publicly identified. That has spurred speculation that it could be a Middle Eastern billionaire or a superconnected Russian — even Mr. Putin.

The ship’s captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, a British national, denied that Mr. Putin owned or had ever been on the yacht. “I have never seen him. I have never met him,” he said. He added, in a phone interview from the yacht, that its owner was not on any sanctions list. He did not rule out that the person could be Russian, but declined to say more about the owner’s identity, citing a “watertight nondisclosure agreement.”

Captain Bennett-Pearce said that Italian investigators had come aboard on Friday and examined some of the ship’s certification documents. “They are looking hard. They are looking at every aspect,” he said. “This isn’t the local coppers coming down, these are men in dark suits.” A person familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it, confirmed that the Italian financial police had opened an inquiry.

On Monday night, Captain Bennett-Pearce said he had “no choice” but to hand over documents revealing the owner’s identity to the Italian authorities. He said he would do so on Tuesday and had been told they would be handled with “confidentiality.”

“I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that this will clear the vessel of all negative rumors and speculations,” he wrote in a message to a New York Times reporter.

The mystery about the ship’s owner arose because — even for the hyper-confidential world of superyachting — there is an unusual degree of secrecy surrounding this vessel. Not only do contractors and crew members sign nondisclosure agreements, as on many superyachts, but the ship also has a cover to hide its name plate. And when it first arrived at the port, workers erected a tall metallic barrier on the pier to partly obscure the yacht from onlookers. Some locals remarked that they had never seen anything like it for other boats.

In his State of the Union address last week, President Biden announced a Justice Department task force to go after oligarchs close to Mr. Putin and facing sanctions in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sanctions have been imposed against hundreds of people, and the list keeps growing.

Last week, French authorities seized the yacht Amore Vero near Marseille as it was preparing to depart, claiming it was owned by a man on that list: Igor Sechin, the head of the Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft. In Italy, police in Sanremo impounded Lena, a yacht belonging to Gennady Timchenko, a Putin friend who controls an oil exporting company. In nearby Imperia, police also impounded the Lady M, a yacht belonging to Alexei Mordashov, Russia’s richest man. The fate of the Dilbar, one of the world’s biggest yachts that the United States says belongs to the oligarch Alisher Usmanov, is unclear. It is in Hamburg, and German officials said the vessel could not leave without an export waiver, Bloomberg News reported .

Some of the biggest superyachts are owned by Russians who are not on the sanctions list. The world’s second-largest, Eclipse, which has a missile defense system and a mini submarine, is owned by Roman Abramovich, the billionaire who is selling his ownership stake in the British soccer club Chelsea. Andrey Melnichenko, a billionaire coal baron, owns Sailing Yacht A.

Determining the ownership of assets that the wealthy want to keep hidden is difficult, especially without a warrant, because they are often zealously guarded by private bankers and lawyers and tucked away in opaque shell companies in offshore secrecy havens. The Scheherazade is flagged in the Cayman Islands and its owner, Bielor Assets Ltd. , is registered in the Marshall Islands. The yacht’s management company, which Captain Bennett-Pearce says is also registered in the Cayman Islands, works from the ship and uses his rental villa in nearby Lucca as its address.

One trade website, which bills itself as “the global authority in superyachting,” claims that the vessel’s owner is “known to be a Middle Eastern billionaire.” The Scheherazade shares a name with the female storyteller in “The Arabian Nights,” and it made one brief foray into the Red Sea in September 2020, calling at the Egyptian port of Hurghada. But mostly it stays in Marina di Carrara, where it has been moored since last September.

Locals have their own theory about the ship’s ownership. Some have heard people onboard speaking Russian. And Scheherazade is also the title of a symphonic work by the Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

“Everybody calls it Putin’s yacht, but nobody knows whose it is,” said Ernesto Rossi, a retired clerk who was taking a walk along the marina’s promenade on Friday. “It’s a rumor that’s been going around for months.”

In Italy, the phrase “Putin’s yacht” has become shorthand for a mysterious and ultra-luxurious ship. It’s also a joke among the dozens of crew members, Captain Bennett-Pearce said. “I’ve heard the same rumors.”

Another, smaller vessel, the Graceful, has long been tied to the Russian president and is known as “Putin’s yacht.” It was tracked leaving Germany for the Russian port of Kaliningrad just weeks before the invasion of Ukraine. (U.S. government officials point out that Mr. Putin owns little outright; many of the luxurious homes or ships he uses are owned by oligarchs.)

Mr. Putin appears to have a penchant for big pleasure boats. During his time as Russia’s leader, he’s been photographed on yachts from Russia’s northern reaches to the Black Sea in the south. Last May, he and Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, took a cruise on a yacht at the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.

The Scheherazade’s builder, Lurssen Group, whose website promises customers “complete confidentiality,” declined to comment about its ownership. Until June 2020, when the completed ship left the pier in Bremen, Germany, it had the code name “Lightning.” The same company built the even bigger superyacht the Dilbar. A similar gigantic yacht, code-named “Luminance,” is now being built at Lurssen, scheduled to be completed next year.

“Of course, all orders and projects of the Lurssen Group and its subsidiaries are treated in accordance with the applicable laws and regulations,” said Oliver Grun, a company spokesman.

About 70 percent of the Scheherazade’s crew is Russian, Captain Bennett-Pearce said. And during each of the past two summers, it has sailed to Sochi, the last time in early July 2021, according to MarineTraffic, a top maritime analytics provider. The ship’s construction was managed by Imperial Yachts, a company in Monaco that, Reuters reported , manages the Amore Vero, Mr. Sechin’s seized yacht. Nick Flashman, who oversees construction of large vessels at Imperial Yachts, declined to comment.

One former crew member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the nondisclosure agreement, said that shipmates called it “Putin’s yacht.” The person said the ship was manned by an international crew during “boss off” times; when it was “boss on,” the crew was replaced by an all-Russian staff. In the weeks before the Scheherazade’s 2020 trip to the Black Sea, the foreign crew was dismissed, the person said.

The former crew member supplied photos of rosters of both international and Russian crew members. The Times reached out, via social media, phone or email, to at least 17 of them. Few responded.

One of the Russians said only that he had worked on the Scheherazade, citing a nondisclosure agreement. Another person said it would be dangerous to talk. One man denied serving on the vessel; another said he hadn’t worked at sea in 25 years.

Captain Bennett-Pearce said “categorically there is not a European crew that comes on and a Russian crew that comes on.” Many of the ship’s senior officers are from Britain, New Zealand and Spain. Many international crew members were dismissed in 2020, replaced by Russians who didn’t demand the high salaries and benefits that their predecessors had, the captain said. “It came down to economics,” he said.

Given the antipathy that people outside of Russia have toward Mr. Putin, if the Russian president really were the owner or principal user of the yacht, keeping non-Russian senior crew members like him on staff would make no sense, Captain Bennett-Pearce said.

“If there’s a European crew onboard it’s the biggest smoke and mirror and the biggest risk I’ve ever heard of,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Dmitriy Khavin , Christoph Koettl , Julian E. Barnes , Jason Horowitz , Rebecca R. Ruiz and Eric Schmitt .

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the new task force announced by President Biden in his State of the Union address. He announced a Justice Department task force to pursue and seize the assets of oligarchs associated with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, not a joint task force with partners in Europe, which was previously announced.

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Michael Forsythe is a reporter on the investigations team. He was previously a correspondent in Hong Kong, covering the intersection of money and politics in China. He has also worked at Bloomberg News and is a United States Navy veteran. More about Michael Forsythe

Gaia Pianigiani is a reporter based in Italy for The New York Times.  More about Gaia Pianigiani

David D. Kirkpatrick is an investigative reporter based in New York and the author of “Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East.“ In 2020 he shared a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on covert Russian interference in other governments and as the Cairo bureau chief from 2011 to 2015 he led coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings. More about David D. Kirkpatrick

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Seized Russian-owned yacht Amadea finally sets sail from Fiji under U.S. control

By Graham Kates

Updated on: June 7, 2022 / 11:44 AM EDT / CBS News

The Amadea, a Russian-owned superyacht, set sail from Fiji Tuesday bearing a U.S. flag, ending weeks of legal and administrative hurdles that had stalled American efforts to seize the $300 million vessel it says is owned by a sanctioned oligarch.

U.S. Justice Department officials had been stymied by a frenzied legal effort by the Amadea's owner to contest the American seizure warrant, and a yacht crew that refused to sail for the U.S.

Fiji's Supreme Court ultimately weighed in Tuesday, clearing the U.S. to take the 348-foot ship.  The Amadea boasts luxury features such as a helipad, a mosaic-tiled pool, a lobster tank and a pizza oven, nestled in a décor of "delicate marble and stones" and "precious woods and delicate silk fabrics," according to court documents.

The ship was targeted by the Justice Department's Kleptocapture task force, a team devoted to seizing the luxury assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs , as part of U.S. efforts to punish Russia for its deadly war in Ukraine. Legislation supported by President Biden that has passed the House of Representatives, but not the Senate, would allow the U.S. to sell the Amadea and direct the proceeds toward the Ukraine war and recovery effort.

Today, with authorization from the Fijian High Court and under a new flag, the Amadea set sail for the United States after having been seized as the proceeds of criminal evasion of US sanctions against Russian oligarch Suleyman Kerimov. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/JHiYUDKcmQ — Anthony Coley (@AnthonyColeyDOJ) June 7, 2022

The U.S. claims the Amadea is owned by sanctioned gold mining billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, but a Fijian lawyer for the holding company the ship is registered to has said the U.S. is incorrect.

The lawyer, Feizel Haniff, said the true owner is Eduard Khudainatov, a Russian oil executive who was sanctioned by the European Union on June 4 but has not been sanctioned by the U.S. The Amadea is one of at least two massive superyachts — with a combined value of about $1 billion — owned by holding companies tied to Eduard Khudainatov

American officials are dismissive of his claim to the yachts, arguing he's not rich enough to own them. An FBI agent wrote in a warrant that Khudainatov is "a second-tier oligarch (at best) who would not have anywhere near the resources to purchase and maintain more than $1 billion worth of luxury yachts."

U.S. officials claim in court documents that Khudainatov is a "straw man" for the sanctioned Russian elite who really own the yachts. 

Haniff declined to comment on Fiji's decision Tuesday to end the legal saga that began in April , when U.S. officials accompanied Fijian police in boarding the ship to interview crew and pore through records on the ship's computers.

Those same police would later escort U.S. officials off the ship after they boarded on the morning of May 7 and demanded the captain "immediately handover the Amadea with all available key personnel," according to a sworn affidavit by the captain, filed in Fiji court.

The day before, a Fiji court had effectively frozen the ship in place, issuing a stay of a previous ruling authorizing the U.S. to take it. 

But even without that stay, the U.S. faced an unexpected hurdle. The crew, whose pay had already been frozen due to sanctions, were "refusing to sail on the Amadea with the U.S. authorities to an unknown destination," the captain wrote in his affidavit. He added that they feared cooperating with the U.S., in breach of their contracts with the ship's owner, would damage their reputations in the yachting industry.

By the end of May, contractors for the U.S. had hired a new crew of 24, led by a captain who had previously been at the helm of the Amadea.

On Tuesday, Fiji's Supreme Court ruled that the ship needed to be turned over to the U.S. in order for Fiji to comply with the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. 

Fiji's top prosecutor said in a statement to media organizations that "the court accepted the validity of the US warrant and agreed that issues concerning money laundering and ownership need to be decided in the court of original jurisdiction," in this case, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

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Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at [email protected] or [email protected]

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Clarence Thomas accepted a free yacht trip to Russia and got flown out on a complimentary helicopter ride to Putin's hometown, 2 Democratic senators say

• Democratic senators have accused Justice Clarence Thomas of accepting undisclosed gifts and trips.
• They say he accepted gifts such as a yacht trip to Russia and a chopper ride to Vladimir Putin's hometown.
• The senators want an investigation into potential tax fraud and ties between Thomas and Harlan Crow.

Two Democratic senators have accused Justice Clarence Thomas of accepting a free trip to Russian President Vladimir Putin's hometown.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon filed a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland on July 3, asking to open an investigation into the Supreme Court judge.

The letter said there was a "serious possibility of tax fraud" and accused Thomas of having "secretly accepted gifts and income potentially worth millions of dollars."

The letter's appendix , which lists 35 undisclosed gifts, shows a "yacht trip to Russia and the Baltics" and a "helicopter ride to Yusupov Palace, St. Petersburg," both listed under the year 2003.

St. Petersburg, Russia, is Putin's birthplace and where he grew up. The president now resides in Moscow.

The appendix list is titled "Likely Undisclosed Gifts and Income from Harlan Crow and Affiliated Companies." Harlan Crow is a real-estate developer and the former chairman and CEO of the Trammell Crow Company.

The senators cited a ProPublica report from May last year detailing Thomas' hushed-up financial ties to Crow.

The report said that apart from the Russia trip, Crow also funded Thomas' grandnephew Mark Martin 's boarding-school fees, which cost "more than $6,000 a month."

In their letter, the senators wrote that other gifts from Crow included "multiple instances of free private jet travel, yacht travel, and lodging," as well as "gifts of tuition for Justice Thomas's grandnephew," "real estate transactions," "home renovations," and "free rent for Justice Thomas's mother."

In September, Thomas said he'd accepted three trips on a private plane owned by Crow . He didn't mention any other gifts.

Related stories

Whitehouse and Wyden aren't the only Democrats who've voiced concerns over Thomas' sketchy financial ties.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York filed articles of impeachment against Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday.

"Justice Thomas and Alito's repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received millions of dollars in gifts from individuals with business before the court is explicitly against the law," her statement reads.

Representatives for Thomas, Whitehouse, Wyden and Crow didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Watch: Why Clarence Thomas' lavish vacations with a GOP donor are in the spotlight

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The long tale of the yacht linked to a Russian oligarch and abandoned in the Caribbean for more than 2 years finally draws to a close

An undisclosed buyer picked up the Alfa Nero for $40 million last week.

The yacht was originally seized from a Russian oligarch in 2022.

The sale ended an ownership tug-of-war, which included ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

An undisclosed buyer has finally stepped up to the helm of the Alfa Nero superyacht, ending a two-year-long saga, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

That buyer agreed last week to pay $40 million, a huge discount to the $67.6 million that former Google CEO Eric Schmidt bid last year, a deal he eventually abandoned.

The Antigua and Barbuda government sold the superyacht, which houses an infinity pool that converts to a helipad or dancefloor.

The massively discounted price can be attributed to authorities' need "to get the boat sold," Richard Higgins, a broker who represented the buyer, told Bloomberg.

Higgins said the European buyer, whose identify was kept secret, intends to put the superyacht on the charter market.

The person "is not included in the sanctions list of any country or institution," Ronald Sanders, Antigua and Barbuda's ambassador to the US, told Bloomberg.

The 267-foot-vessel was seized by Antigua and Barbuda authorities after it was linked to Russian oligarch Andrey Guryev, who was accused by the US Treasury Department of having close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Guryev is the founder of Phosagro, Europe's largest producer of phosphate fertilizers, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index .

The Alfa Nero was among dozens of superyachts seized following global sanctions against Putin's closest associates, which led to billions of dollars in frozen assets.

The Alfa Nero's maiden owner was Guryev, who purchased the vessel for $120 million, according to the US Treasury and the Antigua and Barbuda government . The Russian billionaire had adamantly denied ownership.

After the vessel was seized in 2022, it remained docked in Antigua's Falmouth Harbour, which cost residents of the Caribbean nation $28,000 in weekly tax dollars for maintenance, which took as many as 44 crew members . The superyacht was then valued at $81 million.

In 2023, the Antigua and Barbuda government put the Alfa Nero up for auction, citing hazards due to a lack of maintenance.Eric Schmidt initially won the bidding, for $67.6 million , but eventually backed out after Guryev's daughter claimed ownership of the superyacht.

The most recent acquisition of the Alfa Nero finally ends its ownership limbo, during which it racked up millions of dollars in port fees under the custody of the Antigua and Barbuda authorities, Darwin Telemaque, the Alfa Nero's port manager, told Bloomberg.

Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Antigua and Barbuda taxpayers were footing a $28,000-a-week bill to maintain the Alfa Nero, including the salary of an Italian captain and $2,000-a-day in diesel to keep its air conditioning running. That's because if the AC is turned off, it could let mold spread throughout the vessel and ruin the hardwood interior or a Joan Miró painting onboard, per the WSJ.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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A russian oligarch's $90 million yacht is seized as part of u.s. sanctions.

A Civil Guard stands by the yacht called Tango in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on Monday. U.S. federal agents and Spain's Civil Guard are searching the yacht owned by a Russian oligarch. Francisco Ubilla/AP hide caption

A Civil Guard stands by the yacht called Tango in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on Monday. U.S. federal agents and Spain's Civil Guard are searching the yacht owned by a Russian oligarch.

Spanish officials have seized a Russian-owned luxury yacht in Mallorca at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice. It was the first coordinated seizure under the department's Task Force KleptoCapture, which is tasked with enforcing the sweeping sanctions placed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

The $90 million 255-foot yacht, named Tango, is owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who heads the Renova Group, a Russian conglomerate with interests in metallurgy, machinery, energy, telecommunications as well as others.

"Today marks our taskforce's first seizure of an asset belonging to a sanctioned individual with close ties to the Russian regime. It will not be the last," said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement. "Together, with our international partners, we will do everything possible to hold accountable any individual whose criminal acts enable the Russian government to continue its unjust war."

The seizure was performed by Spanish Guardia Civil officers with assistance from the FBI.

U.S. officials allege that the Tango has been owned continuously by Vekselberg since 2011 and that he used shell companies to " obfuscate his interest in the Tango ," the Justice Department said in a press release.

The release cites alleges bank fraud and money laundering as justification for the seizure, highlighting U.S. bank payments for support and maintenance of the vessel — including a December 2020 stay at a luxury water villa resort in the Maldives.

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'Yacht trip to Russia': Senators publish list of Clarence Thomas’ gifts from benefactors

T wo Senate Democrats have published a list of roughly three dozen lavish gifts Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas received from right-wing billionaires during his time on the Court.

On the eve of the Independence Day holiday, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate Thomas for "possible violations of ethics and tax laws" in his "repeated and willful omissions" of gifts from wealthy benefactors.

"The scale of the potential ethics violations by Justice Thomas, and the willful pattern of disregard for ethics laws, exceeds the conduct of other government officials investigated by the Department of Justice for similar violations," Whitehouse and Wyden wrote. "The breadth of the omissions uncovered to date, and the serious possibility of additional tax fraud and false statement violations by Justice Thomas and his associates, warrant the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate this misconduct."

READ MORE: Expert: Clarence Thomas could face 'criminal prosecution' by not paying taxes on gifts

On page 14 of the PDF Whitehouse posted to his Senate website, there are two lists of gifts to Thomas. The first list describes gifts from far-right real estate magnate Harlan Crow, and the second list shows gifts from other wealthy sponsors, like entrepreneur Anthony Welters — who "loaned" Thomas a luxury RV and then later forgave the loan — and billionaire Wayne Huizenga.

The gifts from Crow date back to 2003, and list excursions like "Yacht trip to Russia and the Baltics" and Helicopter to Yusipov Palace, St. Petersburg." Out of the roughly two dozen gifts Crow gave to Thomas, four are private school tuition payments for his grand-nephew. Many of Crow's other gifts were private jet flights and yacht cruises, including one Sens. Whitehouse and Wyden described as "around Greek islands."

And out of the gifts on the second list, three were from Huizenga, two were from Welters, and five were from former Berkshire Hathaway board member David Sokol. Billionaire Warren Buffett, who owns Berkshire Hathaway, forced Sokol out in 2011 after he learned that Sokol bought a stake in a company he later convinced Buffett's company to buy. Buffett called Sokol's actions "inexplicable" and "inexcusable."

"No government official should be above the law. Supreme Court justices are properly expected to obey laws designed to prevent conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety and to comply with the federal tax code," the senators wrote. "We therefore request that you appoint a Special Counsel authorized to investigate potential criminal violations by Justice Thomas under the disclosure, false statement, and tax laws; pursue leads of related criminal violations by donors, lenders and intermediate corporate entities; and determine whether any such loans and gifts were provided pursuant to a coordinated enterprise or plan."

READ MORE: Clarence Thomas cut off contact with man he raised 'as a son' — now he faces decades in prison

In 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Davide Cay Johnston commented that it was possible Thomas could face " criminal prosecution " by not paying taxes on the previously undisclosed gifts from Crow and others. He opined that any lower-level court judge would not be able to avoid the charges if they failed to pay taxes on gifts worth millions of dollars.

"What Clarence Thomas has done would result in not only any judges in America being removed from the bench, but there is a good chance it would result in criminal prosecution for income tax fraud and for false filings in his mandatory financial ethics disclosure statements," Johnston said in December.

Last month, anti-corruption watchdog group Fix the Court totaled Thomas' gifts and found that the conservative jurist had received approximately $4 million in gifts dating back to 2004 – far more than any other justice on the Supreme Court. And of the 193 gifts Thomas received, he only listed 27 on his required financial disclosure reports.

Click here to read Whitehouse and Wyden's full letter to Garland.

READ MORE: Clarence Thomas discloses billionaire Harlan Crow paid for two luxury vacations after decades of trips

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Watch live:, pentagon concerned at growing arctic cooperation between china and russia.

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Russia and China are increasingly cooperating in the Arctic, which could impact regional stability, the US military said as it released its strategy for the region on Monday.

Russia has reopened hundreds of Soviet-era military sites in the Arctic, the report said.

China, which describes itself as a “near-Arctic” state, also has ambitions there and has said it intends to build a “Polar Silk Road.”

China has its eye on mineral resources and new shipping routes as ice packs recede with rising temperatures.

“Increasingly, the (People’s Republic of China) and Russia are collaborating in the Arctic across multiple instruments of national power,” the Pentagon’s report said.

“While significant areas of disagreement between the PRC and Russia remain, their growing alignment in the region is of concern, and (the Department of Defense) continues to monitor this cooperation,” it added.

Arctic sea routes are increasingly being used for connecting major economies across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans as global warming shrinks ice packs and allows for longer ice-free periods at sea.

China and Russia have been working together to develop Arctic shipping routes as Russia seeks to deliver more oil and gas to China amid Western sanctions, while China seeks an alternative shipping route to reduce its dependence on the Strait of Malacca.

“China has been participating in Arctic affairs in line with the basic principles of respecting win-win cooperation and sustainable development and has strengthened cooperation with other parties to uphold peace and stability,” Mao Ning, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday.

Security scholars and regional military attaches say China’s reliance on Indian Ocean shipping routes are seen as a strategic vulnerability for Beijing, particularly in a conflict over Taiwan.

The Pentagon report added that China was looking to leverage “changing dynamics in the Arctic to pursue greater influence and access, take advantage of Arctic resources, and play a larger role in regional governance.”

The report added that the US military had a “monitor-and-respond” strategy in the region that was built on intelligence collection, cooperation with allies and the ability to deploy military assets.

This month, the US, Canada and Finland will form a consortium to build icebreaker ships, intended to bolster the allies’ shipbuilding and counter Russia and China in increasingly strategic polar regions.

The deal – which the three NATO members aim to sign by year-end – will pool demand from allies to scale shipbuilding capacity, the official said, adding that it was designed to send a message to Russia and China.

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