Russian owned superyacht at centre of dispute arrives in Honolulu

A Russian-owned superyacht seized by the United States arrived in Honolulu Harbour on Thursday flying an American flag.

The US last week won a legal battle in Fiji to take the 325 million US dollars (£264 million) vessel and immediately sailed it to Hawaii.

The FBI has linked the Amadea to the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.

The ship became a target of Task Force KleptoCapture, launched in March to seize the assets of Russian oligarchs to put pressure on Russia to end the war in Ukraine.

The FBI said a search warrant in Fiji turned up emails showing that Kerimov’s children were aboard the ship this year and that the crew used code names: G0 for Kerimov, G1 for his wife, G2 for his daughter and so on.

The 106-metre-long vessel, about the length of a football field, features a live lobster tank, a hand-painted piano, a swimming pool and a helipad.

Lawyer Feizal Haniff, who represented Millemarin Investments, the owner on paper, had argued the owner was another wealthy Russian who, unlike Kerimov, does not face sanctions.