NATIONAL CITY, Calif. — A $325 million Russian yacht seized by the U.S. government more than a year ago was seen cruising around San Diego Bay this week.
A ferry boat employee posted video on Facebook of the Amadea in the water Tuesday off downtown San Diego.
The Amadea has been docked in National City for the past 13 months. U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill to maintain it to the tune of an estimated $1 million per month.
The U.S. Department of Justice still has not filed a court case that would allow the superyacht to be sold at auction.
In May, the DOJ’s Task Force KleptoCapture seized the Amadea in Fiji, claiming in a news release the boat was owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch, Suleiman Kerimov.
The vessel arrived in San Diego in June of last year. It’s been docked off Pepper Park in National City ever since.
Fishermen at Pepper Park said they were startled Tuesday morning by the yacht’s horn repeatedly blowing.
“That horn, it scared the hell out of me,” said Herbert Ramirez, who said he witnessed the Amadea leave the dock around 9 a.m.
Ramirez said the vessel was assisted by a single tugboat.
Tracking data from vesselfinder.com showed the Amadea cruised under the Coronado Bay Bridge and was anchored off downtown San Diego for several hours before it returned to National City.
A CBS 8 reporter witnessed the yacht return to the dock off Pepper Park around 3 p.m. on Tuesday.
A spokesperson with DOJ said the yacht was moved for “routine maintenance.”
According to court records filed in Fiji, the cost to taxpayers to maintain the vessel is about $1 million per month.
“There are insurance costs. There are the costs of maintaining a skeleton crew onboard for safety reasons. They need to keep the engines running,” said journalist Stephanie Baker with Bloomberg News, who has done extensive research on the Amadea.
Baker said the United States hopes to auction off the yacht to help finance the government's fight against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
To do that, the DOJ will have to file a forfeiture case in federal court, which still has not been done, and then convince a judge that the superyacht is owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
“This case is complicated because the owner on paper is a little-known Russian tycoon who is not under sanctions,” said Baker.
“They will have to present a pretty substantial body of evidence to get it through the forfeiture process. And I imagine -- and I'm just speculating here -- that perhaps there's been some hiccup in that process and they're still needing to gather more evidence,” Baker continued.
The Amadea's been docked in National City for 13 months. That amounts to roughly $13 million in maintenance costs to date.
The U.S. government likely will want to be reimbursed for those maintenance costs if and when the yacht gets sold at auction, so that $13 million will not be going to fight the Ukrainian war.
The bill to maintain the Amadea continues to increase.
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