Wake · Issue No. 01 · Summer 2026

Amadea

Forfeited to the US Government and sold at sealed-bid auction on 10 September 2025 (National Maritime Services/Fraser); buyer and price officially undisclosed, reportedly acquired by the family of Dubai billionaire Hussain Sajwani. Second Circuit rejected Eduard Khudainatov's final appeal on 1 June 2026, closing the case; the yacht is back in private use under Cayman registry.

The Amadea never looked better than she did under arrest. For three years the 106-metre Lürssen sat off San Diego — Espen Øino's long white sheer gleaming, thirty-odd crew aboard, engines turned over on gentle laps of the bay — maintained to concours standard by the least likely owner in yachting: the American taxpayer, at very nearly $1 million a month.

How she got there is the story of two Russians and one signature. Suleiman Kerimov, the Dagestani senator who built a fortune in Polyus gold and leveraged bets that would frighten a Macau croupier, was sanctioned by Washington in 2018. On paper, Amadea belonged to Eduard Khudainatov, the former Rosneft chief who has displayed a remarkable talent for owning boats — his claimed flotilla also included the $700 million Scheherazade, impounded in Italy and linked by investigators to Vladimir Putin himself, and the 135-metre Crescent, seized in Spain. The FBI called him what the filings call him: a straw owner. A Manhattan court eventually agreed, finding that it was Kerimov's family who actually used the boat — exclusively, comfortably, and with the confidence of people who never expected discovery.

The music stopped in Lautoka, Fiji, in May 2022, when local police and the FBI walked up the passerelle under the banner of the Justice Department's Task Force KleptoCapture. Fiji's courts waved her on, and by late June an American delivery crew had brought her across the Pacific to San Diego. What they found aboard has since entered the literature: a ten-metre mosaic infinity pool, a helipad rated for a 3.5-tonne Agusta, a cinema, a spa, a live lobster tank in the show galley, and a hand-painted Pleyel grand trimmed in gold. Zuretti's interior for sixteen guests in eight staterooms is Versailles at 19.5 knots — 4,402 gross tons of it.

Then came the bill. Court papers itemised roughly $922,000 a month — $360,000 for crew, $144,000 for insurance, $75,000 in fuel just to keep her systems alive — some $32 million by the time Washington lost patience. Khudainatov's lawyers fought the sale as improper and premature; the district court threw out his claim in March 2025, named Kerimov the beneficial owner, and approved an interlocutory sale of a boat appraised at $230 million against a press tag of $325 million.

The sealed bids closed on 10 September 2025. The US Marshals confirmed a sale and disclosed nothing — not the price, not the buyer — though the trade press swiftly pointed to the family of Hussain Sajwani, the DAMAC founder and Dubai's most enthusiastic collector of trophy assets. Bidders reportedly needed a nine-figure deposit culture and a $500 million net worth just to open the data room. If the number was a Black Friday price, nobody in Washington complained; they were finally off the hook for the lobster tank.

The coda came on 1 June 2026, when the Second Circuit rejected Khudainatov's last appeal, ruling he never had the ownership interest to contest the forfeiture at all. Four years, three governments, two billionaires, one boat. Amadea now flies the Cayman ensign for an owner who bought her the old-fashioned way — with money, at auction, from a motivated seller. In this market, that almost counts as romance.

The record

• Ran US taxpayers roughly $922,000 a month — about $32 million over three years — in crew, fuel and insurance while under seizure in San Diego.
• Boarded at Lautoka, Fiji in May 2022 by Fijian police and the FBI under the DOJ's Task Force KleptoCapture, then sailed across the Pacific to San Diego.
• A Manhattan court ruled sanctioned billionaire Suleiman Kerimov the true beneficial owner, dismissing ex-Rosneft chief Eduard Khudainatov as a 'straw owner' who also claimed the $700M Scheherazade and 135m Crescent.
• Sold by sealed-bid auction on 10 September 2025 for an undisclosed sum to an undisclosed buyer — reportedly the family of Dubai's Hussain Sajwani; the Second Circuit killed the final appeal on 1 June 2026.
• Carries a 10-metre infinity pool, a helipad rated to 3.5 tonnes, a live lobster tank and a hand-painted, gold-trimmed Pleyel grand piano.