why are russian superyachts being seized

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Superyacht seized by U.S. from Russian billionaire arrives in San Diego Bay

June 27, 2022 / 3:40 PM EDT / CBS/AP

A $325 million superyacht seized by the United States from a sanctioned Russian oligarch arrived in San Diego Bay on Monday.

The 348-foot-long (106-meter-long) Amadea flew an American flag as it sailed past the retired aircraft carrier USS Midway and under the Coronado Bridge.

"After a transpacific journey of over 5,000 miles (8,047 kilometers), the Amadea has safely docked in a port within the United States, and will remain in the custody of the U.S. government, pending its anticipated forfeiture and sale," the Department of Justice said in a statement.

The FBI linked the Amadea to the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, and the vessel 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 U.S. said Kerimov secretly bought the vessel last year through various shell companies.

But Justice Department  officials had been stymied  by a legal effort to contest the American seizure warrant and by a yacht crew that refused to sail for the U.S. American officials won a legal battle in Fiji to take the Cayman Islands-flagged superyacht earlier this month. 

The Amadea made a stop in Honolulu Harbor en route to the U.S. mainland. The Amadea boasts  luxury features  such as a helipad, mosaic-tiled pool, 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 successful seizure and transport of Amadea would not have been possible without extraordinary cooperation from our foreign partners in the global effort to enforce U.S. sanctions imposed in response to Russia's unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine," the Justice Department said.

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Trying to sell Russian oligarch's seized luxury assets is running into trouble

Jackie Northam

After Western governments seized millions in assets from Russian oligarchs, a question remains: What should be done with their yachts?

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What Happens After a Superyacht Is Seized? It’s Uncharted Territory.

It's one thing to confiscate a yacht, another to sell it. analysts expect legal battles and hefty maintenance costs while the vessels are impounded., jaclyn trop, jaclyn trop's most recent stories.

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Six weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, authorities are detaining more luxury yachts in global ports than ever. This week’s tally includes 12 vessels under construction in The Netherlands —the world’s foremost superyacht builder—and a $120 million yacht seized in Spanish waters on an FBI warrant.

The US Department of Justice worked with Spanish authorities to capture the 255-foot Tango , owned by Motiv Telecom founder Viktor Vekselberg. The US has joined a growing number of countries detaining superyachts suspected of belonging to businessmen connected to Vladimir Putin.

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“ Tango is not the first time the United States has ever asked a foreign government to assist in executing a warrant,” said Stefan Cassella, a lawyer who served as Chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section in the US Attorney’s Office in Maryland. “But it does seem to be the first time it’s happened in the context of property belonging to a Russian oligarch who was evading sanctions.”

Yacht seizures have been targeting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s cronies, and Putin himself. It’s rumored that he owns the $700-million Scheherazade, which is being held by Italian authorities.  Courtesy AP/Sputnik

US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said on Monday that Tango “will not be the last” yacht belonging to members of Putin’s inner circle to be confiscated.

Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Finland and The Netherlands have detained over the last month billions of dollars in vessels believed to be owned by sanctioned Russians. Last week, the UK government seized its first superyacht, the 192-foot, $45 million Phi   in London’s Canary Wharf.

“The current situation is unprecedented,” Benjamin Maltby, partner at Keystone Law in the UK and an expert in yacht and luxury-asset law, told Robb Report.

The 433-foot Crescent was seized on March 17 by Spanish authorities.  Courtesy Sipa USA via AP

Most large yachts are registered by offshore corporations in island tax havens to obscure their ownership. “If the owner wants to make it difficult, then it can be very hard to trace,” Maltby said . Owners often use shareholders, directors and family members as proxies. The Phi , for example, is registered to a company based in the Caribbean but flies the Maltese flag.

The multinational effort to seize oligarch-owned yachts—which often come with swimming pools, helipads, and millions of dollars in annual maintenance fees—is expected to put economic pressure on Putin and his allies. Owning a superyacht, the ultimate status symbol, is practically a prerequisite for joining Russia’s oligarchy.

But there are multiple legal considerations. Freezing a yacht means that the owner can’t sell the ship or transfer ownership, or provide maintenance services. However, the sanctions don’t allow countries to take ownership of oligarch-owned yachts, giving rise to uncertainties over the fates of the superyachts accumulating in shipyards throughout Europe.

The seizure of Tango on Monday involved Spanish authorities working with FBI agents. The US seized the yacht after connecting it to Putin crony Viktor Vekselberg.  Courtesy AP/Francisco Ubilla

Maintaining a yacht is an expensive endeavor because it is continually exposed to the elements. “A vessel is treated very much like a person or corporation,” Michael Karcher, a maritime lawyer with Robert Allen Law in Miami, told Robb Report. “The boat can run up its own bills. Then, if the yacht is in someone’s boatyard, there’s the question of ‘Can we do any business with them?’”

The ripple effect extends to caterers, yacht brokers, mortgage and insurance companies, and dozens of other industries connected to the yacht’s operation and maintenance.

“When a yacht is seized while in a yard, the owner will remain liable for the maintenance costs,” Maltby said. “But if the owner is unable to pay, the yard is left in a difficult position.”

Equanimity was seized by Malaysia and sold off in 2019 for half of its value. But the yachting world has never seen anything like the mass seizures taking place with the Russian oligarchs.  Courtesy AP

The situation remains unclear for the shipyards and marinas docking the yachts.

Karcher said that he receives calls from shipyards each time the Treasury Department sends a new round of sanctioned names, asking whether they’ve dealt with anyone on the list. “Some are saying, ‘Hey, who is this guy.’ Then they realize there’s this boat taking up a few hundred feet of dock space. ‘Who’s going to pay for it?’”

The answer may vary by jurisdiction.

Roman Abramovich, who was in Turkey earlier this week to observe the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. His $600 million Solaris set sail from Istanbul for international waters this week, while his other yacht Eclipse remains in that country. Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the Maldives are not seizing the Russian oligarchs’ yachts, so many targeted vessels have moved into those waters.  Courtesy AP

The British government has said that Phi ’s owner will be held responsible for all maintenance costs while the boat is ordered to remain at Canary Wharf in London’s docklands. One legal expert said Spanish authorities are likely to maintain Tango while in their custody.

But at most marinas, “yard invoices are indeed just stacking up—unpaid and un-payable,” Maltby said. “Yet the judicial mechanisms for liquidation remain in place. Will we see some bargains coming onto the market in the summer months?”

Many analysts expect protracted lawsuits. “The United States and Western countries have considerable authority to seize property, but less authority to keep it,” wrote Jonathan Turley in USA Today . “The reason is that, unlike Russia, these countries are bound by property rights and rules of due process.”

Lady M was seized by Italian tax authorities on March 5. Owner Alexei Mordashov is on the sanctions list.  Courtesy AP

To take ownership of an oligarch’s yacht, governments have to show that the property was part of a crime. Turley wrote that it may be challenging for prosecutors to prove that the yachts are the result of “proceeds of illegal activity” rather than purchased via legitimate business channels. The seizures could take years in the courts to sort out.

For the moment, the yacht confiscations and freezing of assets seem to be accelerating. The list of detained superyachts include the $580 million Sailing Yacht A owned by coal and fertilizer magnet Andrey Melnichenko; the $153 million Valerie belonging to Sergei Chemezov, CEO of Russian state-owned defense conglomerate Rostec; and t he $120 million Amore Vero linked to Russian oligarch Igor Sechin.

Others are under the watchful eye of the US, UK, and EU, as well as amateurs watching VesselFinder ,  MarineTraffic , and other location-monitoring apps.

Town residents in La Ciotat, France, look at the impounded Amore Vera , owned by Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin.  Courtesy AP

On Monday, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich moved his $600 million Solaris from a Turkish port and into international waters. His $1.5 billion Eclipse , one of the world’s longest and most expensive superyachts, remains docked off the coast of Turkey. Abramovich is believed to own several other yachts as well.

Meanwhile, police in Italy are investigating the Scheherazade , a 460-foot superyacht thought to belong to Vladimir Putin that remains docked at a Tuscan resort.

No yachts have been seized in US waters, but the Biden administration has taken aggressive measures to punish Russians who have benefitted from “ill-begotten gains,” as President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address last month.

Seizing a yacht is easy, selling it is much more complicated. Analysts expect many legal battles over the yachts.  Courtesy AP

Authorities say many yachts remain in international waters or docked in countries that have not imposed sanctions , such as the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and the Maldives.

That island nation is said to have a half-dozen Russian-owned superyachts in its waters, including Andrey Melnichenko’s 390-foot Motor Yacht A . The country’s chief prosecutor, Hussain Shameem, told Reuters that the idea of confiscating a Russian superyacht was “far-fetched” because of the country’s rudimentary legal system and lack of a military.

Congress is considering a bi-partisan bill called “Yachts for Ukraine” that would allow authorities to seize Russian-owned assets of $5 million or more. The bill permits the government to sell the assets and send the cash to aid humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in Ukraine. The Department of Justice also announced a $5 million reward for tips leading to yacht owners on the sanctions list, but so far has not disbursed any reward money.

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How did the superyacht Bayesian sink? Experts say weather was just one factor

Divers searching for 6 missing people locate 5 bodies inside wrecked yacht's hull.

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A complicated search effort is underway deep beneath the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Italy, where a superyacht sank early Monday during a fierce storm. 

Dive crews are attempting to enter the wreck of the Bayesian, a 56-metre long British-flagged luxury vessel, which is sitting in some 50 metres of water near the Sicilian fishing village of Porticello.

Fifteen of the 22 passengers and crew members on board were rescued. Divers searching for six people considered missing, including British businessman Mike Lynch, located five bodies inside the yacht's hull on Wednesday, and retrieved four of them from the water.

Searchers previously recovered the body of Recaldo Thomas, the ship's Canadian-Antiguan cook, in the water not far from where the Bayesian sank.  

• Diving team finds 5 bodies in Sicily yacht search
• Canadian dead, several others missing after superyacht capsizes off Sicilian coast

Questions have emerged about why a boat designed to handle severe weather sank so rapidly and whether or not some of its features could've been a factor in its demise. Maritime experts say investigations may, in time, reveal what led to the disaster.

"There needs to be an investigation as to why this happened, what went wrong and, you know, how to prevent it in the future cases," said Simon Boxall, an oceanographer and senior lecturer at the University of Southampton in England.

Canadian dead, others missing after superyacht sinks near Sicily

How did the bayesian sink so quickly.

Grainy footage from closed-circuit cameras on the shore broadcast on the website of the Giornale di Sicilia newspaper showed the Bayesian's majestic mast just before it disappeared. 

Karsten Borner, captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, which rescued the survivors who managed to get into a lifeboat, told The Associated Press he was close enough to be able to see the Bayesian as the storm came in.

"A moment later, she was gone," he said.

The survivors told the rescuers they went flat on the water "and were sunk in two minutes."

Boxall said vessels rely on being able to steer and navigate stormy seas, but the Bayesian was anchored and stationary, which likely made it more vulnerable to the storm and, potentially, a waterspout , or mini tornado that creates a whirlwind over the surface of the sea. 

He said it was also dark, meaning "you wouldn't see this sort of very unique event coming towards you."

CCTV footage shows yacht Bayesian as deadly storm strikes

"It's a freak of nature," Boxall said. "I think the fact that so many have survived, so far, is probably a miracle."

Tom Sharpe, a retired Royal Navy commander and defence commentator, told CBC News the weather was likely not the only issue.

He says it's rare that a weather event like this takes down a boat. 

"There's nearly always a sequence [of events]," he said in an interview from Guildford, England, explaining that everything from safety protocols to the culture on board the vessel needs to be taken into account. 

Was the boat's design part of the problem?

The Bayesian was built in 2008 by Italian luxury yacht maker Perini Navi.

Andrea Ratti, a nautical design professor at Milan Polytechnic, told Reuters that a boat the size of the Bayesian could only sink so rapidly by taking on a huge amount of water. 

He suggested that one or more portholes, windows or other openings may have been broken or smashed open by the waterspout, letting in water. There has also been media speculation that a major hatch might have been inadvertently left open.

Reports have also highlighted that the Bayesian featured a 72-metre mast — one of the tallest in the world. 

Ratti said an unusually tall mast is not by itself an element of vulnerability in a storm. 

A second expert, structural engineer Filippo Mattioni, was also skeptical about the suggestion the boat may have sunk due to a broken mast, which likely would have caused major damage smashing against the hull.

Fire department diver Marco Tilotta told the newspaper Il Messaggero that the wreck was "apparently intact," with "no gashes, no signs of impact." However, only half of the hull is visible to divers.

The Bayesian also had a retractable keel — the fin-like structure under the hull that helps stabilize boats and acts as a counterweight to the mast. 

Both Ratti and Mattioni wondered if the yacht had been anchored with the keel up, reducing the vessel's depth under water and making it less stable. Ratti said strong winds might have caused the boat to start oscillating wildly, "like a pendulum," putting exceptional strain on the mast.

Sharpe pointed out that a mast the size of the Bayesian's is designed for a massive sail, and without that sail raised and catching the wind, the gusts likely would've had a negligible impact on the aluminum pole.

• What we know about the capsized superyacht off the Sicilian coast

He instead suggested the anchor may have played a pivotal role.

"My kind of working assumption is that she was probably a bit further in at anchor, and it's very likely, in these sort of conditions, that her anchor dragged," he said. 

In such a situation, he said, a crew is better off steering toward the anchor to stabilize the vessel or raising the anchor and heading out to sea to ride out the storm.

"They might have got caught in that middle ground where they're not on a particularly good anchorage, but the anchor is now controlling the bow of the ship."

Sicily superyacht rescue: What divers are up against | About That

What caused the extreme weather.

Although Sharpe says the weather is unlikely the sole cause of the sinking, he notes the Mediterranean isn't the calm sea often pictured in travel brochures. 

"It can get pretty nasty," he said.

The type of storm that struck Monday is fuelled by warm water and the Mediterranean is warmer than ever, said Boxall, noting there's been about a three and a half degree increase in the 20-year average temperature.

'The ship behind us was gone,' says captain who rescued yacht passengers

Climatologists say global warming is making such violent and unexpected tempests more frequent. 

Luca Mercalli, president of Italy's meteorological society, said the sea surface temperature around Sicily in the days leading up to the shipwreck was about 30 C. 

"This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms," he told Reuters.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Senior Writer

Nick Logan is a senior writer with CBC based in Vancouver. He is a multi-platform reporter and producer, with a particular focus on international news. You can reach out to him at [email protected].

With files from The Associated Press and Reuters

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The 5 tragic minutes that sank a superyacht

PORTICELLO, Italy — Survivors of a storm that sank a superyacht off Sicily recounted their ordeal to one of the doctors who rushed to their aid, with some saying it took mere minutes for the 180-foot ship to go down. 

Dr. Fabio Genco, head of the Palermo Emergency Medical Services, told NBC News on the phone Thursday that he arrived in the seaside village of Porticello before dawn Monday, about an hour after the $40 million Bayesian sank in the violent and sudden storm.   

Of the 22 people onboard, 15 survived despite storm conditions and darkness, climbing onto a lifeboat before being rescued by a nearby sailboat. The crew members have made no public statements so far, though some have been interviewed by investigators.

“They told me that it was all dark, that the yacht hoisted itself up and then went down,” Genco said, recounting what the survivors told him. “All the objects were falling on them. That’s why I immediately made sure, by asking them questions, if they had any internal injuries,” he said. 

It appears they had just minutes to abandon the sinking ship, Genco said. 

“They told me that suddenly they found themselves catapulted into the water without even understanding how they had got there,” he said, “And that the whole thing seems to have lasted from 3 to 5 minutes.”

Giovanni Costantino, CEO of The Italian Sea Group, which owns Perini Navi that built the Bayesian, told Sky News that there were no flaws with the design or construction of the yacht. He said their structure and keel made boats like that “unsinkable bodies.”

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, he disavowed responsibility, blaming instead the actions of the crew. “Mistakes were made,” he said. 

Genco said one of his colleagues who arrived at the scene before him initially thought that only three people survived, but the coast guard reported there were other survivors and more emergency services were called in. 

When Genco arrived, he found scenes of panic and despair. 

“Unfortunately, we are used to such panic scenes because we are used to the shipwrecks that happen on Lampedusa ,” Genco said, referring to the island southwest of Sicily, where the wreckage of boats carrying migrants on the sea journey from North Africa to Italy are often found . 

Six of the passengers were declared missing Monday, and by Thursday, the bodies of five had been recovered from the wreck , some 160 feet underwater.

Among those who survived is Angela Bacares, wife of the British tech mogul Mike Lynch , whose body was recovered Thursday. 

Another survivor has been identified as Charlotte Emsley, 35. She told the Italian news agency ANSA that she had momentarily lost hold of her year-old daughter, Sofia, in the water but managed to retrieve her and hold her over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were pulled into safety.

Dr. Domenico Cipolla at the Di Cristina Children’s Hospital in Palermo is also part of a team of medical professionals treating the shipwreck survivors. He told the BBC on Wednesday that Emsley and her daughter, as well as the father of the child, who Cipolla said also survived, are continuing to receive psychological help. 

“Psychological support was constant and is constant even today, because basically it is the wounds of the soul that are the most in need of healing in these cases,” Cipolla said.

Genco also told NBC News that he was especially concerned about the child. “She did not understand anything. She was soaking wet and cold,” he said. 

Karsten Borner, the Dutch captain of the Sir Robert Baden Powell, a yacht that was anchored near the Bayesian, said by phone Wednesday that he saw a thunderstorm come in at around 4 a.m. local time (10 p.m. ET) Monday, followed by what looked like a waterspout, a type of tornado that forms over water. 

The International Centre for Waterspout Research noted on X that there was a “waterspout outbreak” off Italy on Monday, the day the Bayesian sank. 

“I turned on the engine and made maneuvers so that we wouldn’t collide with the Bayesian, which was anchored about 100 meters from us,” Borner said. “Then all of a sudden it disappeared. Then the wind calmed down, we looked around and saw a red flare.”

Borner said he got into his boat’s tender and saw a life raft with 15 people on it. Members of the crew were administering first aid. 

“I don’t know why it sank so quickly, but it may have something to do with the mast which was incredibly long,” he said. Questions have been raised about whether the mast was to blame for the accident as tall masts, even with the sails down, have more surface area exposed to the wind, which can contribute to tipping a vessel in a storm.

The CCTV footage that emerged Tuesday showed the yacht’s 250-foot mast, believed to be one of the tallest aluminum sailing masts in the world, lashed by the storm as it appears to tilt to one side before disappearing.

Claudia Rizzo is an Italy based journalist.

Claudio Lavanga is Rome-based foreign correspondent for NBC News.

Yuliya Talmazan is a reporter for NBC News Digital, based in London.

What we know about the sinking of the superyacht off Sicily

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How did the superyacht carrying tech tycoon Mike Lynch sink off Sicily?

Lynch’s was among five bodies retrieved by divers on Wednesday after the Bayesian sank, according to reports.

Five bodies were retrieved on Wednesday by divers searching for those missing from the superyacht which sank off the Sicilian coast in the Mediterranean. The bodies found include British tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah, the UK’s Telegraph reported. The bodies have not been formally identified by the authorities yet.

It is understood that they were retrieved from inside the sunken yacht, which is reported to be lying on its side on the sea bed at a depth of 50 metres

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This brings the total death toll to six; one person, reported to be the chef from the yacht, was confirmed dead on Monday.

The yacht capsized on Monday at about 5am (03:00 GMT) after it was hit by stormy weather caused by a “waterspout” – or mini tornado – according to Italian authorities.

The cruise had reportedly been undertaken to celebrate the acquittal of Lynch in a fraud trial in the United States in June.

His co-defendant in the trial, Steve Chamberlain, who was also acquitted in June, was killed after being hit by a car on Saturday.

Here’s what is known so far about the yacht, those on board and who died or were still missing after it sank.

Who was on the superyacht which sank?

According to the Italian coastguard, the 56-metre-long (184 feet) British-flagged yacht, called the Bayesian, was carrying 22 people, including 10 crew members.

One person has been confirmed dead after rescuers located a body on Monday at a depth of about 50 metres (164 feet), the AFP news agency reported. Officials have not yet given the name of the deceased but Italian media reported that he was the yacht’s chef.

AFP reported on Tuesday that divers had spotted a second body inside the sunk boat, quoting a source close to the search operation. Authorities have not confirmed it yet, though.

While not all the names of the six missing passengers were not made public officially, they were understood to include:

• Mike Lynch, 59, a British-Irish technology businessman who co-founded British tech company Autonomy in 1996 and was once likened to Microsoft founder Bill Gates; he earned a PhD from Cambridge University
• Hannah Lynch, 18, Mike’s daughter, who had just completed her final school exams and was due to begin a degree in English at the University of Oxford this September
• Jonathan Bloomer, the 70-year-old British chairman of Morgan Stanley bank and the Hiscox insurance company, was confirmed as missing by Hiscox CEO Aki Hussain
• Judy Bloomer, Jonathan’s wife, was also confirmed as missing by Hussain
• Chris Morvillo, from British international law firm Clifford Chance, was confirmed to be missing by Salvatore Cocina, head of the Civil Protection in Sicily

Fifteen people, including Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, were rescued. Among others rescued were Charlotte Golunski, 36, a board director at Luminance, a software startup founded by Lynch; her husband, James; and their one-year-old daughter, Sophie. Golunski is understood to have kept her daughter alive by holding her above her head while she was in the water.

All those rescued are in stable condition, although eight of them have been hospitalised, according to Italian news agency Adnkronos.

What do we know about the Bayesian?

Italian shipbuilder Perini Navi constructed the superyacht in 2008 and refitted it in 2020, according to the company’s website.

The yacht’s owner is listed as Revtom Limited, a firm solely owned by Lynch’s wife, Bacares, according to company documents seen by the Reuters news agency.

It was formerly called Salute but was renamed Bayesian after Lynch’s PhD thesis and his software that earned him a fortune. Both of these were based on the statistical Bayesian theory, championed by mathematician Thomas Bayes.

Where was the Bayesian last seen and where was it going?

The Bayesian was last located on Sunday evening in the Tyrrhenian Sea, east of the harbour at Porticello, according to ship tracking websites Vessel Finder and Marine Traffic.

Porticello is a port city located near the Sicilian capital, Palermo.

The yacht had departed on August 14 from the Sicilian port of Milazzo. Its destination was reported to be the Italian city of Bagheria by the tracking websites.

Did a waterspout cause the yacht to sink?

Italian authorities reported that the stormy conditions that caused the yacht to sink were triggered by a waterspout.

A waterspout is a rotating column of whirling air and water mist – sometimes referred to as a mini tornado – according to the website of the US National Ocean Service.

The website adds that a tornadic waterspout is a tornado that forms over water or moves from land to water. They are similar to land tornadoes and can occur during thunderstorms.

Who is Stephen Chamberlain and how is he connected to this case?

Chamberlain, 52, was Lynch’s co-defendant in a fraud trial in San Francisco, which saw both men acquitted in June.

Chamberlain died in a hospital from injuries sustained when he was hit by a car while out running in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, on Saturday. His death was confirmed by his lawyer Gary Lincenberg in a statement on Monday.

The fraud case related to Hewlett Packard’s $11bn acquisition of Autonomy, the firm Lynch grew into the UK’s leading tech company before it spectacularly unravelled after being bought by HP in 2011.

Lynch was extradited to the US in May 2023 and he spent more than a year under house arrest before his acquittal. Chamberlain was the former vice president of finance at Autonomy.

The yacht trip was supposedly a celebration of Lynch’s acquittal.

How did the rescue operation unfold?

Specialist divers began a search anew for the six missing people on Tuesday. Three divers, equipped with oxygen cylinders, descended beneath the surface to examine the wreck.

They initially faced difficulty accessing the yacht’s chambers because they were constricted by furniture.

An investigation into the wreck has been opened by prosecutors in the nearby Sicilian town of Termini Imerese.

What have survivors and witnesses said about the incident?

“It was terrible. The boat was hit by really strong wind and shortly after it went down,” survivor Golunski told the ANSA news agency.

She added that she had lost hold of her one-year-old daughter in the water for “two seconds”, but then managed to grab her and hold her up over the waves until a lifeboat inflated and they were both pulled to safety. She reported that people were screaming.

Karsten Borner, a captain of a nearby yacht who witnessed the sinking, said he had turned on the engine of his ship to prevent collision with the Bayesian. “We managed to keep the ship in position and after the storm was over, we noticed that the ship behind us was gone,” he told reporters.

Bloomer’s wife, Judy, is a trustee of the Eve Appeal, a UK-based gynaecological cancer research charity. Athena Lamnisos, the CEO of the Eve Appeal, was quoted by the BBC saying she was “deeply shocked to hear the news that our very dear friend and her husband Jonathan, are among those missing”.

The United States vs. a yacht: How the government can take a Russian oligarch's $90 million superyacht

• The US seized a Russian oligarch's superyacht for the first time this week.
• The process of civil asset forfeiture lets the Justice Department sue objects and take them.
• But the government has to pay for upkeep while the case goes through the courts.

On Monday, US federal agents, working with Spanish authorities, seized a 255-foot, $90 million superyacht belonging to Viktor Vekselberg, a billionaire and ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The seizure was part of "Operation KleptoCapture," the US Justice Department announced . Working with the Treasury Department and allied countries , prosecutors are investigating and prosecuting oligarchs who break laws connected to new US sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

For weeks, countries like France, the United Kingdom, and Italy have made showy yacht seizures , raiding them for computers and closing them off as their suspected oligarch owners are slapped with sanctions.

In the United States, seizing a yacht is a little less straightforward.

First, you must sue the yacht.

The United States vs. a yacht

The seizure of Vekselberg's yacht, named the Tango, was part of a process called civil asset forfeiture.

Prosecutors determine that some property — in this case, a yacht, but it could be something like a pile of cash, a car, or a house — was instrumental in illegal activity or was purchased from the profit of a crime. Prosecutors then ask a judge to sign a warrant for a seizure, which permits them to take it.

Civil asset forfeiture is an especially useful legal instrument for when prosecutors want to go after people living in other countries. If a criminal case were filed against a foreigner, they can simply stay out of the US or countries with US extradition treaties.

Criminal asset forfeiture can only be used upon a conviction. And if a person can't stand trial, they can't be convicted.

So, we have civil asset forfeiture.

The rationale for seizing Vekselberg's yacht was laid out in court documents made public Monday and reviewed by Insider. The yacht itself is a defendant in the case, titled "In the matter of the seizure of the motor yacht Tango, with International Maritime Organization Number 1010703." If Vekselberg wants his yacht back, he'll come into the case as a claimant — not a defendant.

An FBI affidavit filed to court said the Tango was at the center of a bank fraud and money laundering conspiracy. Prosecutors accused Vekselberg and unnamed co-conspirators of structuring payments regarding the boat in a way that obscured the oligarch's ownership, thereby avoiding transaction reporting requirements.

"Bank records received by law enforcement show that, prior to being sanctioned by the Treasury Department, Vekselberg made U.S. dollar payments from accounts in his own name to Arinter and its managers," the FBI agent wrote, referring to a holding entity for the yacht. "These payments are consistent with Vekselberg being the true owner of the TANGO."

The US has had sanctions against the Ukraine-born Vekselberg and his company, the Moscow-based Renova Group, since 2018.

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But the Constitution's Fourth Amendment doesn't allow the US government to take things belonging to oligarchs just by putting them on a sanctions list.

What Operation KleptoCapture does, according to Duncan Levin, a former prosecutor specializing in money laundering and asset forfeiture cases, is train the Justice Department's resources toward sanctioned oligarchs who may have disguised their forbidden financial transactions.

"It is not illegal to be an oligarch," Levin, an attorney at Tucker Levin PLLC, told Insider. "It is illegal to commit crimes, including some that take place outside the United States."

Fortunately for prosecutors investigating Russian oligarchs, money laundering gives "a lot of wiggle room" for the types of assets that can be seized in connection to the alleged crime, according to Sarah Krissoff, a former federal prosecutor overseeing complex financial investigations.

"The statutes are pretty vast," Krissoff, an attorney at Day Pitney, told Insider. "That's definitely where I would work if I was a prosecutor and trying to get at some of these assets."

Your tax dollars will pay for the yacht's upkeep

So, how does one seize a yacht?

In the case of the Tango, which is docked in Palma de Mallorca, US authorities asked Spanish authorities for help. A video  the Justice Department published  shows agents from the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Spain's interior ministry boarding the yacht and entering the control room.

—Jacob Shamsian (@JayShams) April 4, 2022

When the federal government seizes something, it goes under the control of the US Marshals Service . They're in charge of making sure the property is kept in good condition. For the Tango, they have a gym, elevator, beach club, and beauty salon  to worry about.

"If there's something that has to be done, like make sure the property doesn't flood or make sure the water's turned off in the winter or something — that's the Marshals' responsibility," Krissoff told Insider. "So that can get very complicated for a yacht."

The US Marshals Service has a huge network of private contractors they work with to take care of upkeep. For complicated assets like a plane, yacht, or artwork, it'll probably be a contractor doing the day-to-day work rather than actual marshals. Cars are often held in specialized lots, and boats may be placed in dry docks to make maintenance easier.

The Justice Department said in a statement Monday that the yacht is still in Palma de Mallorca. It might just stay there. Owners of seized assets, in many cases, may still be able to use them until litigation is complete. Prosecutors might just make an on-paper seizure with the intent of selling it down the line.

It could take years for a forfeiture case to make its way through the courts, and the scope of the owner's use is often negotiated, Krissoff said. The court records for the Tango seizure are still sealed, and it's not clear if prosecutors have talked with Vekselberg (or his lawyers) about what they'll do with the yacht.

All of the experts who spoke with Insider mentioned the saga of 650 Fifth Avenue, a Manhattan skyscraper.

The US Attorney's office in Manhattan tried to seize it in 2008 , alleging it was partly owned by a sanctioned Iranian bank. It took until 2017, when a jury agreed with the prosecutors' case, for the seizure to move forward — but the moves were thwarted in 2019 when the jury verdict was overturned upon appeal.

Having the US Marshals Service take care of a skyscraper for 11 years only to lose the case would have been a financial debacle. For something like a yacht, the Justice Department might allow Vekselberg to continue paying for the upkeep instead of the US government.

In some cases, prosecutors can apply for "interlocutory sale," Levin said, where they'd sell the asset. It's an option they consider when properties are expensive to maintain or would diminish in value.

"They'd take the yacht, they'd sell it, and they'd hold the money in an escrow account," Levin said. "And then they'd seize the money in lieu of the yacht. And if they lost the case, they would give the money back."

If that were to happen, whoever bought the yacht would get to keep it.

Seizing a yacht may make a difference in Ukraine

Vekselberg is worth $16.6 billion, according to Bloomberg . A yacht worth an estimated $90 million, at the end of the day, is a little more than half a percentage point of his estimated net worth.

According to Juan Zarate, who oversaw the George W. Bush administration's efforts to seize Saddam Hussein's assets, the new wave of sanctions is unlikely to have an immediate effect on the war in Ukraine. Seizing one of Putin's associate's yachts isn't going to stop a bombing campaign.

But the cumulative effect of sanctions — and the signal that the US is willing to go to great lengths to enforce them — can be "incredibly painful" in the long term, Zarate said.

"There's a mismatch of the expectations of what these kinds of cases can do in the short term versus what they do in the long term, which is to constrain the ability of these oligarchs to operate freely and comfortably, and the psychology around that," Zarate told Insider.

Operation KleptoCapture comes amid calls to seize yachts, apartments, and other flashy luxuries flaunted by ultrawealthy Russian nationals believed to profit from the country's corruption.

There's also the REPO — short for Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs — task force between the Justice and Treasury departments to enforce sanctions connected to the Ukraine invasion.

"Nothing's gonna be a silver bullet and nothing's gonna solve the problem with Putin wanting to invade a neighbor, but it is part of an effort to pressure and to isolate," Zarate said.

According to the FBI affidavit, Vekselberg's Renova Group is complicit in "the threat posed by the actions and policies of certain persons who had undermined democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine; threatened the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine; and contributed to the misappropriation of Ukraine's assets."

The FBI affidavit accuses the company of other nefarious misdeeds. It says that Vekselberg and associates have been accused of using "armed soldiers and corrupted Russian court proceedings" to gain control of a Siberian oilfield, and plundered a bank to buy Faberge eggs, according to reports. Executives at his companies have been arrested on bribery charges, as well.

The selection of Andrew Adams — an experienced corruption prosecutor who oversaw transnational crime, asset forfeiture, and money laundering at the US Attorney's office in Manhattan — to lead Operation KleptoCapture signals just how serious the US government is about going after oligarchs' assets, Krissoff said.

Adams' team was famous for being "remarkably creative" in building forfeiture cases, something that will come in handy as the task force goes after everything from yachts to cryptocurrency, she said.

"They're used to looking at complicated ownership structures," Krissoff said. "They're used to situations where it's very muddy, how the asset was procured. They're used to finding creative ways for identifying ownership of the asset."

Watch: Videos show dead bodies and a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine

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What to Know About Ukraine’s Cross-Border Assault Into Russia

The incursion caught Russia by surprise and signified a shift in tactics for Kyiv after more than two years of war with Russia.

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By Andrew E. Kramer Constant Méheut Kim Barker Anton Troianovski and Cassandra Vinograd

Ukraine pressed ahead with its offensive inside Russian territory on Sunday , pushing toward more villages and towns nearly two weeks into the first significant foreign incursion in Russia since World War II.

But even as the Ukrainian army was advancing in Russia’s western Kursk region, its troops were steadily losing ground on their own territory. The Russian military is now about eight miles from the town of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, according to open-source battlefield maps . The capture of Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian stronghold, would bring Moscow one step closer to its long-held goal of capturing the entire Donetsk region.

That underscored the gamble Ukraine’s army took when it crossed into Russia: throwing its forces into a daring offensive that risked weakening its own positions on the eastern front.

Whether that strategy will prove advantageous remains to be seen, analysts say.

On the political front, the offensive has already had some success: Ukraine’s rapid advance has embarrassed the Kremlin and has altered the narrative of a war in which Kyiv’s forces had been on the back foot for months.

Here’s what to know about Ukraine’s cross-border operation, which President Biden said last week was creating a “real dilemma” for the Russian government.

What happened?

Ukrainian troops and armored vehicles stormed into the Kursk region of western Russia on Aug. 6 , swiftly pushing through Russian defenses and capturing several villages.

Held by Ukraine

as of Aug. 13

Sverdlikovo

Sievierodonetsk

Area controlled

Zaporizhzhia

Sea of Azov

Ukrainian incursion

Source: Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project

By Veronica Penney

The assault, prepared in the utmost secrecy , opened a new front in the 30-month war and caught not only Russia off guard: Some Ukrainian soldiers and U.S. officials also said they lacked advance notice.

Analysts and Western officials estimate that Ukraine deployed about 1,000 troops at the start of the incursion. But military analysts say that it has since poured more troops into the operation to try to hold and expand its positions.

How far into Russia have Ukrainian troops advanced?

Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top commander, said last week that his army now controlled more than 80 Russian settlements in the Kursk region, including Sudzha , a town of 6,000 residents. His claims could not be independently verified, although analysts say that Sudzha is highly likely to be under full Ukrainian control.

Ukraine’s advance in the Kursk region has slowed in recent days, according to open-source maps of the battlefield based on combat footage and satellite images, as Russia sends in more reinforcements. The Ukrainian army appears to be trying to dig in along the border area rather than pushing deeper into Russia.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine acknowledged that on Saturday, saying : “Now we are reinforcing our positions. The foothold of our presence is getting stronger.”

Why is this significant?

Kyiv has regularly bombarded Russian oil refineries and airfields with drones since Moscow’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. It has also helped stage two other ground attacks in Russia. Those, however, were smaller forays by Russian exile groups backed by the Ukrainian army, and they ended in quick retreats.

Until two weeks ago, Ukrainian forces had not counterattacked in Russia. The gains in Kursk are the quickest for Ukrainian forces since they reclaimed the Kherson region of their own country in November 2022.

How has the Kremlin responded?

As Ukrainian forces pushed deeper into Russia, Moscow scrambled to shore up its defenses, and President Vladimir V. Putin convened his security services to coordinate a response. The Russian military said it was sending more troops and armored vehicles to try to repel the attack, with Russian television broadcasting images of columns of military trucks.

Military analysts and U.S. officials have said the Russian command had so far brought in reinforcements mainly from within Russia so as to not deplete its units on the Ukrainian battlefield, in what they described as a disorganized effort.

“Russia is still pulling together its reaction,” Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, NATO’s top military commander, said last week during a talk at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He described the Russian response as having been “fairly slow and scattered” as the authorities sorted out which military and security forces should take the lead.

And what about Putin?

The incursion has embarrassed Mr. Putin and his military establishment, prompting questions about Russia’s level of preparedness .

Underscoring how the attack rattled the Kremlin, Mr. Putin lashed out last week at the West in a tense televised meeting with his top officials. “The West is fighting us with the hands of the Ukrainians,” he said, repeating his frequent depiction of the war, which he started, as a proxy campaign against Russia by the West.

Ukraine’s incursion has brought the war into Russia like it never has before, and tens of thousands of civilians have evacuated the border area.

What is the goal of Ukraine’s incursion?

Analysts say that Ukraine’s offensive has two main aims : to draw Russian forces from the front lines in eastern Ukraine and to seize territory that could serve as a bargaining chip in future peace talks.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a top Ukrainian presidential adviser, said last week that Russia would be forced to the negotiating table only through suffering “significant tactical defeats.”

“In the Kursk region, we can clearly see how the military tool is being used objectively to persuade” Russia to enter “a fair negotiation process,” he wrote on social media .

The operation has offered a much-needed morale boost for Ukrainians, whose forces have been losing ground to Russian troops for months.

But military analysts have questioned whether Kyiv’s cross-border assault is worth the risk, given that Ukrainian forces are already stretched on the front lines of their own country.

How is it affecting the fight inside Ukraine?

Russian forces have been pummeling Ukrainian troops in the east even as Moscow races to respond to the incursion into Kursk , according to analysts, Western officials and Ukrainian soldiers.

Russia has begun to withdraw small numbers of troops from Ukraine, they said, to try to help repel the Ukrainians, but not enough to significantly affect the overall battlefield for now.

Senior American officials have said privately that they understood Kyiv’s need to change the narrative of the war, but that they were skeptical that Ukraine could hold the territory long enough to force Russia to divert significant resources from the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine.

While Kyiv’s allies have in the past been wary that Ukrainian incursions in Russia could escalate the war, the European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell Fontelles, said last week that Ukraine had the bloc’s “ full support .”

Ukraine has used some Western-supplied weapons in the Kursk operation. But so far, the United States and Britain, two of Kyiv’s closes allies, have said the incursion did not violate their policies.”

What happens next?

As the Ukrainian offensive approaches its two-week mark, analysts say that Kyiv has several options, each with its own challenges.

Ukrainian forces could try to keep pushing farther into Russia, but that will become harder as Russian reinforcements arrive and Ukraine’s supply lines are stretched.

They could keep digging into the territory they now hold and try to defend it, but that could expose fixed Ukrainian positions to potentially devastating Russian airstrikes.

Or, battered by continual losses in eastern Ukraine, they could decide that they have made their point and pull back.

Thibault Fouillet, the deputy director of the Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies, a French research center, said Ukraine’s next move would depend on how Russia responds. “The coming week will be decisive,” he said.

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

Andrew E. Kramer is the Kyiv bureau chief for The Times, who has been covering the war in Ukraine since 2014. More about Andrew E. Kramer

Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people. More about Constant Méheut

Kim Barker is a Times reporter writing in-depth stories about national issues. More about Kim Barker

Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. More about Anton Troianovski

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

New Cases Against Journalists : Moscow said that it had opened a criminal case  against a CNN correspondent and two Ukrainian reporters on charges of entering Russia illegally while reporting on Ukraine’s incursion.

Russia Pushes Forward as Ukraine Slows:  The Ukrainians must defend a critical front in their country’s east, including the city of Pokrovsk , while trying to press forward in western Russia.

A Combat Medic’s Quest :  Iryna Tsybukh, who was killed on the front line in Ukraine, wanted to humanize the way Kyiv commemorated the war dead . She also left notes for her own funeral.

Drone Attack on Moscow:  Russia said that it repelled a large Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow . Authorities did not report any damage or casualties.

An Orthodox Schism: Ukraine’s Parliament passed a bill that would ban a Russian-aligned branch of the Orthodox church . Ukrainian officials have accused the church of aiding Russia during the war.

How We Verify Our Reporting

Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs , videos and radio transmissions  to independently confirm troop movements and other details.

We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts .

Ukraine Was Biding Its Time

While outside analysts downplayed their chances, the Ukrainians were quietly planning an offensive across the Russian border.

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Earlier this week, reports began filtering in that Ukrainian forces had entered Russia’s Kursk province, in what many analysts assumed was a small cross-border raid—of a sort that Ukraine has attempted a few times since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. But as the hours and days ticked by and Ukrainian forces moved deeper and deeper into Russian territory, the seriousness of the military operation became obvious. The Ukrainians spread out as they went along, and had soon seized more ground from Russia in a few days than Russia has taken during an offensive in the Kharkiv region that began in the spring. As part of the new incursion, Ukraine has been deploying advanced armored vehicles, including German-supplied Marder infantry fighting vehicles—a striking development, given the unease among Kyiv’s allies about being seen as escalating hostilities between the West and Russia.

The initial success of what’s looking more and more like a full offensive shows what the Ukrainians can achieve if they have both the tools and the latitude to fight Russia. Ukraine’s most generous benefactors, especially the United States and Germany, have previously expressed their strong opposition to the use of their arms on Russian soil. In May, the U.S. made an exception , allowing Ukraine to use American equipment to hit back on Russian-based targets involved in the attack on Kharkiv. Still, the broader prohibition limited Kyiv’s military options.

Now Washington and Berlin may be softening their positions more than they’re explicitly saying. A Pentagon spokesperson said Thursday that U.S. officials still “don’t support long-range attacks into Russia” but also that the Kursk incursion is “consistent with our policy.” Perhaps President Joe Biden, freed of electoral considerations, can focus more on how best to help the Ukrainians now—and limit the damage that Donald Trump could do to their cause if he wins in November. The White House’s notably bland statement on the Ukrainian offensive on Wednesday was hardly the sign of an administration in panic.

Read: The final six months of U.S. aid to Ukraine

Clearly, Kyiv has been biding its time. Its planning for the current offensive took place quietly—and amid many pessimistic assessments of its military prospects by outside analysts and claims that it should save its forces for combat in the Donbas. The weakness of Russian defense is in some sense shocking—but was also completely predictable because of the way Ukraine has been asked to fight. Its allies’ apprehension about taking the war to Russian territory has provided Vladimir Putin with a major asymmetrical advantage. The Russians have been able to send almost all of their troops into Ukraine itself, safe in the knowledge that Ukraine’s own partners were securing Russian territory from attack.

Moscow simply took the U.S. and Germany too much at their word. Russian forces seem to have kept only substandard troops at the border, and the fortifications in the Kursk area have so far presented few problems for the Ukrainians. The lack of Russian internal defenses first became obvious last summer, when the former Putin confidant Yevgeny Prigozhin mutinied and directed an armed force to march toward Moscow, and apparently only small improvements have been made since. “Between countries at war, there is no border, there is only the front,” the Ukrainian analyst Mykola Bielieskov told me. “The Russians have forgotten that—the Ukrainians did not.”

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister who now leads the Center for Defense Strategies, a Ukraine-based think tank, described five potential motivations for the new offensive: diverting Russian forces from other fronts, particularly near Kharkiv; discouraging further Russian cross-border attacks into Ukraine by showing that Russia’s own borders are unprotected; showing the rest of the world that, despite its size, the Russian army is weaker than it appears; testing out new military tactics; and taking the initiative away from the Russian side. The larger question is how far the Ukrainians want to expand their current offensive.

Anne Applebaum: Why is Trump trying to make Ukraine lose?

Throughout this war, widespread electronic surveillance by both sides has frequently tipped each off about the other’s plans. But in recent weeks, Kyiv built up the necessary forces so stealthily that the Russians had no idea what was going to hit them. The Ukrainians apparently carefully arranged for drones and computer hackers to suppress Russian resistance once their soldiers crossed the border. In three days, they came close to seizing the Russian city of Sudzha, through which runs a key rail line close to the Ukrainian border.

Notably, the U.S. and German governments have not publicly opposed any of this. Perhaps the two allies are no longer as nervous about cross-border operations as they were. Maybe the U.S. has finally come to understand that if Ukraine really is going to have a chance to win, it must be allowed to fight the war properly.

The real answer, of course, is that no one outside the Ukrainian government really knows what is happening—and, so far, Kyiv has been extremely tight-lipped on this operation. Having kept it quiet before it started, the last thing the Ukrainians want to do is let Russia know their intention. Whatever happens, the Kursk offensive has been a well-executed operation to this point. It’s their plan. Let them see to it.

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