US Seizes Russian Billionaire Vekselberg’s $99 Million Superyacht In Spain

At the request of the US government, a superyacht belonging to Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg has been confiscated in Spain. The US government has reportedly stated that it was the first but definitely not the last asset seizure targeting individuals close to Vladimir Putin, as per Bloomberg Quint.??

“Together, with our international partners, we will do everything possible to hold accountable any individual whose criminal acts enable the Russian government to continue its unjust war,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland reportedly said in a statement.?

The $99 Million Superyacht & Its Seizure

The 78-meter-long (256 feet) ship called Tango is valued at more than 90 million euros ($99 million). It has been impounded at the port of Palma de Mallorca (Spain) by the police, in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), according to a statement from the Spanish Civil Guard yesterday.

Spanish authorities reportedly acted in response to a U.S. request after a seizure warrant was filed in federal court in Washington. The warrant alleges that the Tango “was subject to forfeiture based on violation of U.S. bank fraud, money laundering, and sanction statutes,” according to the Justice Department.??

AP photo

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The $99 million yacht’s seizure was coordinated through the U.S. Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an inter-agency group aimed at imposing stiff penalties on wealthy Russians in response to Moscow’s Ukraine invasion.?

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said “Today marks our task force’s first seizure of an asset belonging to a sanctioned individual with close ties to the Russian regime. It will not be the last.”

Bloomberg

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Sanctions Against Superyacht’s Owner

Viktor Vekselberg, who’s the chairman of Renova Management AG and is reportedly worth $16.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control but not the European Union.?

Vekselberg has been under OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) sanctions since 2018, partially over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and other earlier actions taken against Ukraine. Last month, the U.S. government had specifically identified Tango as a blocked asset, along with a private Airbus A319 jet, as per BloombergQuint.

TASS

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The U.S. action follows a series of similar moves by European countries after EU authorities imposed sanctions on Russian billionaires and businessmen to prevent them from moving their assets. In Spain, which is home to some of the largest ports in Europe used by owners of large yachts as a base to sail the Mediterranean as well as refit ships, the government had previously seized three other yachts.

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