Court in Fiji approves U.S. warrant to grab Russian-owned mega-yacht

Fiji's High Court docket on Tuesday dominated that a huge Russian-owned yacht might be seized by U.S. authorities.

American and Fijian officers claim the Cayman Islands-flagged Amadea is the property of Suleiman Kerimov, an oligarch who constructed his fortune on gold mining. Kerimov was sanctioned in March by the United States, United Kingdom and European Union in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

However an attorney who represents Millemarin Investments, the corporate the $325 million ship is registered to, said it is not owned by Kerimov. As a substitute, he argued in court docket that company paperwork traces the ship's ownership to Eduard Khudainatov, a former govt at Russia's state-owned Rosneft oil company who has not been sanctioned. 

Kerimov and Khudainatov could not be reached for comment. The corporate intends to attraction Tuesday's decision.

The Amadea berthed in Fiji on April 13, in response to native studies and the maritime analytics website Marine Traffic. Soon after, a federal decide accepted a warrant for the ship to be seized and on April 19, Fiji's prime prosecutor moved to stop the ship from leaving.

The Division of Justice could not immediately be reached for remark. 

On April 4, the agency announced that Spanish authorities had assisted it in seizing another Russian yacht, the $90 million Tango, which was owned by Viktor Vekselberg, the owner of the Russian conglomerate Renova Group.

Laws handed by the House of Representatives on April 27 would allow the U.S. to promote the yacht and other properties value more than $2 million seized from Russian oligarchs with the intention to fund the Ukrainian struggle effort. President Joe Biden supports the bill, which has yet to move the Senate.

"We will seize their yachts, their luxury houses and different ill-begotten gains," Biden mentioned on April 28 at the White House.

Graham Kates is an investigative reporter masking criminal justice, privacy points and knowledge security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at KatesG@cbsnews.com or grahamkates@protonmail.com