It is now just over two years since Spanish officials, with the assistance from the FBI and Homeland Security, seized a Russian-owned luxury yacht in Mallorca at the request of the U.S. Department of Justice.
It was the first coordinated seizure under the department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, which has been tasked with enforcing the sweeping sanctions placed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
The $90 million 255-foot yacht, named Tango, is owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who heads the Renova Group, a Russian conglomerate with interests in metallurgy, machinery, energy, telecommunications as well as others.
However, the yacht, seized on April 4 2022, remains in Palma, has not been sold and is costing the US government a small fortune in maintenance.
When the yacht was located in Palma, the FBI and the Guardia Civil gained access to the boat and it was seized by order of a court in Palma on the basis of a request from a court in the District of Columbia.
Since then, the United States has been responsible for the costs of keeping the vessel in port.
But, given the high cost, the US government wants to sell the vessel in order to use the funds to finance the Ukrainian army.
The proposal, for the moment, has been rejected by the company that owns the Tango.
Vekselberg is one of many Russian “oligarchs” named in the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2017.
In March 2018, members from Robert Mueller’s team of special counsel investigators questioned Vekselberg at a New York area airport.
According to journalist Stephen Smith, Vekselberg is close to the Kremlin.
In April 2018, the United States Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on Vekselberg and Renova Group through designation under Executive Order 13662 (”Blocking Property of Additional Persons Contributing to the Situation in Ukraine”).
United States imposed sanctions on him and 23 other Russian nationals in relation to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, officially freezing up to $2 billion in assets.
Also he has been sanctioned by The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) “for operating in the energy sector of the Russian Federation economy”.
In February 2021, Vekselberg complained that more than $1.5 billion of his funds were frozen in American and Swiss bank accounts and that he was not allowed to send “small amounts” to charity.
On September 1, 2022, several properties believed to be linked to Vekselberg were searched by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. The inspection included an apartment in Manhattan; an estate in the Hamptons, New York; and property on Fisher Island in Florida. Officials were seen carrying boxes out of the two New York locations.
In March 2022, following Russia’s invasion against Ukraine, the United States strengthened its sanctions and the UK, Poland and Australia also placed sanctions on Vekselberg, thereby seizing his assets and imposing a travel ban.