She is now moored at a busy ro/ro terminal in National City, just south of Naval Base San Diego by Pepper Park. The seized Russian yacht Amadea arrived safely in San Diego after a 5,000-mile voyage from Fiji, concluding her transfer to U.S. custody.
The Amadea is a 350-foot motor yacht built in Germany in 2016. U.S. authorities believe that the beneficial owner is the sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, a billionaire with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
When Amadea entered Fijian waters mid-April, the U.S. filed a request for seizure with local courts and sent FBI agents to carry out enforcement. The yacht's holding company sued to block them and claimed the true beneficial owner was an unrelated Russian businessman - an individual with limited financial means for operating a $350 million yacht.
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The case worked its way up through the country's court system over the course of a month, and in early June, Fiji Supreme Court issued a final ruling which gave custody of the vessel to the U.S. government.
With a new crew and a new U.S. flag registration, Amadea set off across the Pacific to Hawaii. She pulled into port in Honolulu on June 17, took on stores and headed onwards to San Diego, arriving on June 27.
_Daily Morph