- Kate Middleton is elegant in Burberry trouser suit to visit Leeds textile mill once owned by her ancestors Daily Mail
- Princess Kate laughs off awkward shoe moment as she visits textile mill in Leeds – best photos HELLO!
- How Kate Middleton’s ancestors were wool barons whose booming textile business lead them to mix with royalty – Daily Mail
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Robinhood pays $605 million for 55 million shares once owned by Sam Bankman-Fried following a 4-way tussle – Yahoo Finance
- Robinhood pays $605 million for 55 million shares once owned by Sam Bankman-Fried following a 4-way tussle Yahoo Finance
- Retail Trading Giant Robinhood Repurchases $605,000,000 Worth of Shares the Feds Seized From Sam Bankman-Fried The Daily Hodl
- Robinhood Agrees $600 Million Buyback of Seized Sam Bankman-Fried HOOD Stake From US Marshal Service Cryptonews
- Robinhood buys back $605 million stake once owned by Sam Bankman-Fried CNN
- Robinhood Buys Back Sam Bankman-Fried’s Seized Shares Worth $600 Million Decrypt
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Noem blocks South Dakota business with certain companies owned or controlled by ‘evil foreign governments’
South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem signed an executive order Friday that prevents the state from doing business with particular telecommunications companies owned or operated by “evil foreign governments.”
The order, according to Noem’s office, blocks business with companies associated with the governments of China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Cuba and Venezuela.
Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando Feb. 25, 2022.
(Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In addition, Noem’s office said the order, known as Executive Order 2023-02, requires that “every state contract include a clause certifying the contractor is not owned, influenced, or affiliated with these countries.”
“It is critical that we protect South Dakotans from evil foreign governments,” Noem said after signing the order, which will take effect next week. “This order ensures that these countries cannot leverage telecommunications or state contract procurements to gain access to crucial state infrastructure and data.”
SOUTH DAKOTA GOVERNOR BANS TIKTOK FOR STATE AGENCIES, WARNING OF SECURITY THREAT
“Maintaining the cybersecurity of South Dakota state government is necessary to continue to serve South Dakota citizens,” the order states. “The Chinese Communist Party has increasingly purchased vital agricultural land necessary to the nation’s food independence and real property near critical infrastructure, such as real property near a military base in Grand Folks, North Dakota.”
Additionally, the order stated that South Dakota is “home to critical infrastructure vital to national security” and that “cybersecurity vulnerabilities may lead to real-world consequences for South Dakota residents.”
KRISTI NOEM SAYS BIDEN ADMIN BLOCKED JULY 4 MT. RUSHMORE FIREWORKS FOR THIRD STRAIGHT YEAR
“Countries including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea have engaged in increasingly aggressive cyber-attacks on the United States’ assets, including Iranian financially-motivated ransomware operations, Russian phishing attempts, Chinese targeted extractions of corporate data, cyber-attacks on crucial ports since 2013, and the cyber and physical targeting of electric grid stations in Washington, North Carolina, and other states in late 2022,” the order noted.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
(Getty Images)
Last November, Noem made headlines when she signed an executive order prohibiting state agencies — or those who contract with them — from accessing the China-owned social media app TikTok and warned the Chinese Communist Party is ripping information from users.
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“It’s off our networks. It’s blocked off of our servers. Any state employee, anybody who contracts with the state of South Dakota, anybody who uses any of our systems no longer will be able to download or utilize this app because of the national security threat that it is,” Noem told Fox News at the time.
Accessing the app will be a criminal offense, she said, adding TikTok poses a threat to the Mount Rushmore State and the personal data of all South Dakotans and, by extension, Americans.
Fox News’ Charles Creitz contributed to this article.
Casa Bonita sets a reopening date, now owned by “South Park” creators
Call it a Christmas miracle: Casa Bonita finally has an open date.
According to a Thursday announcement, the famous eatertainment venue in Lakewood will reopen in May for the first time since 2020, when it closed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Guys, I saw a thing in the news about what Coloradans want for Christmas, and besides a new football team and fresh snow, they said they wanted an opening date for Casa Bonita,” said Trey Parker, co-creator of “South Park” and co-owner of Casa Bonita, in a video announcement. “So guess what?!”
“We’re opening in May!” said Parker, co-owner/co-creator of “South Park” Matt Stone and chef Dana Rodriguez said in unison.
Thursday’s announcement is the first fans have heard since November 2021, when Casa Bonita announced it had hired three-time James Beard-nominated Denver chef Dana Rodriguez to lead the kitchen.
It’s been a long time coming, too. The venue closed in March 2020 due to COVID-19 and the “South Park” creators purchased it in September 2021.
The original plan was to reopen by late 2022, but this summer, Stone and Parker said they couldn’t confirm an opening date due to unforeseen challenges with the building’s renovation. In June, for example, Casa Bonita’s iconic fountain was razed amid concerns about its crumbling foundation. According to city permitting documents and construction plans, the renovations are expected to cost about $12 million.
“Have you ever seen ‘Kitchen Nightmares’? It’s the very, very worst one of those you could possibly ever imagine,” Parker told The Post in August. “What we thought would be, ‘Oh this will be cool. We can buy this and open it and it’ll be around again,’ turned into ‘Oh this is going to be what we have to put all our money into and hope that it works.’”
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Yeezy, owned by Ye, aka Kanye West, cut ties to JPMorgan before ‘White Lives Matter,’ antisemitism controversy
‘Black Victim to Black Victor’ author Adam B. Coleman reacts to rapper Ye West’s claim that Hollywood ‘bullied’ him for being a Trump supporter on ‘Varney & Co.’
JPMorgan Chase is severing ties with Yeezy Brands, owned by Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West.
The bank sent Ye a letter on Sept. 20, weeks before he mired himself in controversy after wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt at his Paris fashion show and writing antisemitic social media posts.
The letter was shared by Ye’s friend conservative activist Candace Owens on Twitter who commented, “We have reached extremely frightening times in this country.” She didn’t specify in her tweet when the letter was sent.
Ye told the New York Post of the news Wednesday, “Hey, if you call somebody out for bad business, that means you’re being antisemitic. I feel happy to have crossed the line of that idea so we can speak openly about things like getting canceled by a bank.”
KANYE WEST ERUPTS AFTER ADIDAS PUTS YEEZY PARTNERSHIP ‘UNDER REVIEW’ FOLLOWING ‘WHITE LIVES MATTER’ STATEMENT
FILE – In this Feb. 9, 2020, file photo, Kanye West arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, Calif. Rapper and fashion mogul Ye’s high-end clothing company Yeezy has agreed to pay $950,000 to settle a lawsuit over slow shipping to cus (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File) / AP Newsroom)
Ye said he planned to cut his corporate ties in an interview a week before the bank’s letter, telling Bloomberg, “It’s time for me to go it alone.”
He added, “It’s fine. I made the companies money. The companies made me money. We created ideas that will change apparel forever. Like the round jacket, the foam runner, the slides that have changed the shoe industry. Now it’s time for Ye to make the new industry. No more companies standing in between me and the audience.”
He had also criticized executives at JPMorgan before the interview on Instagram and said he couldn’t get the CEO on the phone.
KANYE WEST DROPS THE GAP, STARTS HIS OWN STORES
The JP Morgan Chase & Co. headquarters, The JP Morgan Chase Tower in Park Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan, New York. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational banking and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in th (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images / Getty Images)
“I feel like there’s a lot of controlling and handling to suppress my ability to affect the American economy and industry,” Ye told Bloomberg of JPMorgan.
Adidas said its partnership with the mogul is “under review” last week following the “White Lives Matter” controversy. (REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo/Steve Eichner/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images)
The bank gave Yeezy 60 days from the letter to find a new institution for its money.
Yeezy has already ended its relationship with Gap and Adidas said its partnership with the mogul is “under review” following the “White Lives Matter” controversy.
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“After repeated efforts to privately resolve the situation, we have taken the decision to place the partnership under review,” the company said on Oct. 6, three days after Ye’s fashion show. “We will continue to co-manage the current product during this period,” the company said in a statement.
No reason has been specified by JPMorgan’s severing of ties.
If You’re Owned by a Cat, Scientists Want to Hear From You
Scientists in California are asking for U.S. volunteers who live with cats to participate in a new research project. The study will survey owners about their pet’s behaviors and their knowledge of training methods. The team’s larger goal is to help cats—especially kittens—and humans better form healthy relationships with one another.
The work is being conducted by scientists from the Animal Welfare Epidemiology Lab at the University of California Davis. Last fall, the team recruited volunteers who owned exactly two cats to look at cat videos on the internet, as part of a project to study how well owners could read feline body language. They were especially interested in knowing whether owners could tell when cats were about to lash out at their furry roommates.
That project is still ongoing, but the lab is now beginning work on a new study. This time, they want to explore the socialization of cats viewed through the lens of their owners, as well as how much importance owners place on different aspects of cat socialization.
“Socialization here refers to the introduction of the animal to new people, places, and objects. This includes everything from kitten socialization programs (often called “kitten kindergarten”) to adult cats going on adventures with their owner,” project researcher Jennifer Link, a PhD student at the lab, told Gizmodo.
Link notes that newly adopted dogs and their owners routinely take part in dedicated socialization programs. But the same can’t be said for cat-owning families. Some reasons for this discrepancy might include that cat owners aren’t interested in these programs; that they can’t afford or access them; or that they simply don’t know they exist in the first place. Another key focus of the project will include trying to figure out why so few families attend kitten kindergarten.
“Once we’ve collected all the responses, we can share our findings with shelters, cat behaviorists, and the public, so as to hopefully make cat and kitten socialization more accessible to all those who want to get to it,” she said.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, studying cats and their interactions with people isn’t as easy to do as it is with dogs. For instance, cats can get very anxious when outside of their normal environment, meaning that their behavior in a lab is likely to be substantially different from how they act usually. So surveys and citizen-science projects that can be conducted at home can bridge these gaps in research. And this study in particular may help scientists like Link find the best ways to improve cat-human bonds from an early age.
“In short: a well-socialized kitten becomes a well-adjusted adult, and we’d like to do whatever we can to ensure the creation of more well-socialized kittens. We hope that our study will be a good first step in that process,” Link said.
The team is looking to obtain about 2,500 survey responses in total, with an eye on having something to show to the public within the next 12 to 18 months. Eligible volunteers (current cat owners in the U.S.) can sign up here, and the survey should take no longer than 10 to 15 minutes to fill out.
Brazil police: Items owned by missing men found in Amazon
ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil — Search teams found a backpack, laptop and other personal items that belonged to Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira and freelance British journalist Dom Phillips, who went missing in a remote area of Brazil’s Amazon a week ago, Federal Police said Sunday night.
Phillips’ backpack was discovered Sunday afternoon tied to a tree that was half-submerged, a firefighter told reporters in Atalaia do Norte, the closest city to the search area, which is near the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory. It is the end of the rainy season in the region and part of the forest is flooded.
Officers with the Federal Police brought the items by boat to Atalaia do Norte later in the afternoon. In a statement a few hours later, they said they had identified the belongings of both missing men, such as Pereira’s health card and clothes.
A tarp from the boat used by the men was found Saturday by Matis volunteers, members of an Indigenous group of recent contact, one of them told The Associated Press.
“We used a little canoe to go to the shallow water. Then we found a tarp, shorts and a spoon,” said Binin Beshu Matis.
After that find, the search teams concentrated their efforts around that spot in the Itaquai river.
On Saturday, police reported finding traces of blood in the boat of a fisherman who is under arrest as the only suspect and organic matter of apparent human origin inside the river. Both materials are under forensic analysis, and no more details were provided.
Pereira, 41, and Phillips, 57, were last seen June 5 near the entrance of the Indigenous territory, which borders Peru and Colombia. They were returning alone by boat on the Itaquai river to Atalaia do Norte but never arrived.
That area has seen violent conflicts between fishermen, poachers and government agents. Violence has grown as drug trafficking gangs battle for control of waterways to ship cocaine, although the Itaquai is not a known drug trafficking route.
Authorities have said that a main line of the police investigation into the disappearance has pointed to an international network that pays poor fishermen to fish illegally in the Javari Valley reserve, which is Brazil’s second-largest Indigenous territory.
One of the most valuable targets is the world’s largest freshwater fish with scales, the arapaima. It weighs up to 200 kilograms (440 pounds) and can reach 3 meters (10 feet). The fish is sold in nearby cities, including Leticia, Colombia, Tabatinga, Brazil, and Iquitos, Peru.
The only known suspect in the disappearances is fisherman Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, also known as Pelado, who is under arrest. According to accounts by Indigenous people who were with Pereira and Phillips, he brandished a rifle at them the day before the pair disappeared.
The suspect denies any wrongdoing and said military police tortured him to try to get a confession, his family told The Associated Press..
Pereira, who previously led the local bureau of the government’s Indigenous agency, known as FUNAI, has taken part in several operations against illegal fishing. In such operations, as a rule the fishing gear is seized or destroyed, while the fishermen are fined and briefly detained. Only the Indigenous can legally fish in their territories.
“The crime’s motive is some personal feud over fishing inspection,” the mayor of Atalaia do Norte, Denis Paiva, speculated to reporters without providing more details.
AP had access to information police shared with Indigenous leadership. But while some police, the mayor and others in the region link the pair’s disappearances to the “fish mafia,” federal police have not ruled rule out other lines of investigation, such as narco trafficking.
Fisherman Laurimar Alves Lopes, who lives on the banks of Itaquai, told AP that he gave up fishing inside the Indigenous territory after being detained three times. He said he endured beating and starvation in jail.
Lopes, who has five children, said he only fishes near his home to feed his family, not sell.
“I made many mistakes, I stole a lot of fish. When you see your child dying of hunger you go get it where you have to. So I would go there to steal fish to be able to support my family. But then I said: I’m going to put an end to this, I’m going to plant,” he said during an interview on his boat.
Lopes said he was taken to local federal police headquarters in Tabatinga three times, charging he was beaten and left without food.
In 2019, Funai official Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was gunned down in Tabatinga in front of his wife and daughter-in-law. Three years later, the crime remains unsolved. His FUNAI colleagues told AP they believe the slaying was linked to his work against fishermen and poachers.
Rubber tappers founded all the riverbank communities in the area. In the 1980s, however, rubber tapping declined and they resorted to logging. That ended, too, when the federal government created the Javari Valley Indigenous Territory in 2001. Fishing has become the main economic activity since then.
An illegal fishing trip to the vast Javari Valley lasts around one month, said Manoel Felipe, a local historian and teacher who also served as a councilman. For each illegal incursion, a fisherman can earn at least $3,000.
“The fishermen’s financiers are Colombians,” Felipe said. “In Leticia, everybody was angry with Bruno. This is not a little game. It’s possible they sent a gunman to kill him.”
100 Private Jets Owned by Russian Oligarchs Are Stuck in Dubai: Report
- Dozens of private jets belonging to Russian oligarchs are effectively grounded in Dubai.
- The Wall Street Journal reported on a build-up of more than 100 planes at Dubai airports.
- Dubai may seem like a safe haven for luxury assets but sanctions effectively restrict their use.
Private jets belonging to Russian oligarchs that flew to Dubai to seek refuge from sanctions, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are effectively stuck there, The Wall Street Journal reported.
It’s caused a build-up of more than 100 planes that sit idle at Dubai airports since the war began. The Journal cited satellite imagery and data from aerospace research firm WINGX.
According to WINGX’s website, “with 49 outbound flights in the first week of March, the Russia-UAE connection is three times busier than pre-pandemic, but just two-thirds of the outbound activity during the last week of February.”
Satellite images shot by Earth-imaging company Planet Labs also show an accumulation of private jets from mid-February to the start of April, per The Journal.
When Russia attacked Ukraine, Western nations joined together to penalize Russia for its actions by imposing a number of sanctions. The sanctions aimed to destabilize not just the Russian economy, but some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies too.
Many Russian oligarchs and billionaires had some of their most luxurious assets seized as a result of the sanctions. Last month, for instance, Gibraltar seized a $75 million superyacht owned by billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky.
Some of Russia’s richest have found refuge in places that have not imposed sanctions, including Dubai and the Maldives.
In March, four private jets were spotted leaving Moscow for Dubai, according to flight tracking site Flightradar24. Unlike Western destinations, Dubai has not banned Russian air traffic.
However, as these jets fly to Dubai to evade sanctions, they resultantly become stuck there as Russian jet owners can’t fly them anywhere else, aviation lawyers and private jet brokers told The Journal.
“A lot of the Russian-related airplanes have moved to the UAE because you can fly in the airspace there,” Steve Varsano, CEO of a London-based sales brokerage firm for private planes, to the publication. “But once you get there you’re pretty much grounded because you can’t maintain the airplanes.”
Recently, the US Department of Commerce imposed sanctions that prevent Russian-linked aircraft from being refueled, maintained, or repaired. Major aviation companies, including Boeing and Airbus, also stopped supplying spare parts to Russian airlines as a result of the war.
Experts recently commented on sanctions against oligarchs, with one telling CNN he believed they were largely “symbolic.”
Where yachts owned by Russian oligarchs are right now
Yachts owned by Russian oligarchs — who have bought some of the largest and most extravagant “superyachts” on the planet — are gleaming symbols of how Russia’s elite have profited under the government of President Vladimir Putin.
Now, as Russian forces ramp up their deadly military campaign in Ukraine, the yachts are emerging as key targets of the US and European allies, who are vowing to seize property owned by Putin’s enablers.
Disputes are already erupting: French officials seized a yacht Wednesday night that they said was linked to Igor Sechin, a sanctioned Russian oil executive and close Putin associate, as it was preparing to flee a port. But the company that manages the ship denied Sechin was the owner. And the White House said German officials had seized another oligarch’s yacht in Hamburg, while local authorities denied any ships had been confiscated.
The French seizure shows that confiscating oligarchs’ yachts will require a concerted global effort — and it’s likely to mean protracted legal battles around the world, experts said.
A CNN review of maritime location data from the website MarineTraffic found that more than a dozen yachts that have been reported to be owned by Russian oligarchs are spread out across the world, from the crystal waters of Antigua to ports in Barcelona and Hamburg to atolls in the Maldives and Seychelles.
In several cases, the billionaires’ yachts have been on the move in the days since the Russian offensive began.
Meanwhile, officials around the world are also enforcing sanctions on a far less flashy but still important group of vessels: oil tankers and container ships the US Treasury Department says are owned by the subsidiary of a bank with close ties to Russia’s defense industry. French authorities intercepted one of the cargo ships last weekend, and a Malaysian port refused to let another dock.
Sanctions and asset seizures “make it more difficult for the Kremlin to persuade capable people of getting involved in its activities and thereby weaken the grip of the Kremlin over elites,” said William Courtney, a former US ambassador and current executive director of the RAND Business Leaders Forum, whose members include Russian and Western leaders.
President Joe Biden put the Russian elite on notice in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night.
“To the Russian oligarchs and the corrupt leaders who bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime: No more,” Biden declared. “We are joining with European allies to find and seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets. We’re coming for your ill-begotten gains.”
The US Department of Justice launched a new task force — dubbed KleptoCapture — to help put Biden’s words into action. The effort includes prosecutors, federal agents and experts in money laundering, tax enforcement and national security investigations from the FBI, the IRS, the US Marshals Service, and the US Postal Inspection Service, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Wednesday.
“We will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to investigate, arrest, and prosecute those whose criminal acts enable the Russian government to continue this unjust war,” Garland said.
Russian-tied yachts docked around the world
Yacht ownership is extremely difficult to confirm, with the ships often registered to management companies or shell corporations in an apparent effort to disguise ownership, experts say.
But more than a dozen of the billionaires included in a list of Russian “oligarchs” the Treasury Department released in 2018 have been tied to yachts in media reports in recent years, according to a CNN review.
Most of the oligarchs who reportedly own yachts are not yet facing US sanctions. However, some have been sanctioned by the European Union or the United Kingdom, and could be added to US sanctions lists as well.
Amber Vitale, a former official with the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces sanctions, said that US sanctions generally only prevent Americans and American companies from interacting with sanctioned individuals. That means the oligarchs’ yachts could be safe from seizure if they stay in international waters or in countries that haven’t issued their own sanctions.
“However, it would get very difficult to operate for long if many allied nations impose similar prohibitions,” Vitale said in an email. “Vessels need ports, fuel, operators/captains, repairs and supplies. Without access to these things they could be stuck floating at sea waiting for rescue or resolution.”
The seizures have already begun, with French officials taking the Amore Vero, the yacht they said is owned by Sechin, according to a statement from France’s Ministry of Economy and Finance. The yacht arrived at the French port of La Ciotat on January 3 for repairs, but was “making arrangements to sail urgently, without having completed the planned work” when it was seized on Wednesday, the ministry said. Sechin, the CEO of the Russian oil company Rosneft, was sanctioned by the EU earlier this week, and Rosneft itself was sanctioned by the US in 2014.
But a yacht management company associated with the ship denied Sechin owned it. “I can absolutely say that Igor Sechin is not the owner,” a spokesperson for Imperial Yachts, which manages the Amore Vero, told CNN. “The rightful owner is appealing the decision to seize the vessel.”
Legal experts told CNN that oligarchs were likely to transfer assets such as yachts to friends or family who aren’t sanctioned to try to prevent them from being seized. Catherine Belton, the author of a book on Putin, said she expected oligarchs were “feverishly engineering deals where ownership changes could be triggered.”
“It’s going to be a game of cat and mouse,” she said.
The French ministry said that the Amore Vero, which has an onboard gym and beauty salon and won an award for yacht design, is owned by a company whose “main shareholder” is Sechin. Sechin served as Russia’s deputy prime minister in Putin’s cabinet before becoming CEO of Rosneft, one of the country’s largest companies, in 2012.
The seizure may also scare other Russian oligarchs into getting their ships out of EU ports. The Dilbar, one of the largest yachts in the world, which is reportedly owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, arrived in Hamburg, Germany in late October, according to MarineTraffic data. There was confusion about the ship’s status on Thursday: Usmanov was sanctioned by the EU earlier this week, and Forbes reported that German authorities had seized the 156-meter ship, which can carry up to 96 crew members and 24 guests. The US Treasury Department also sanctioned Usmanov on Thursday, specifically calling out the Dilbar as evidence of his “luxurious lifestyle.”
But a spokesperson for the Hamburg economic authority told CNN Thursday that “no yacht has been seized by authorities or customs at the port in Hamburg at this moment in time.” German customs officials did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment, and the shipbuilding company that reportedly had been refitting the yacht declined to comment.
The Luna, a yacht reportedly owned by Farkhad Akhmedov, an Azerbaijani billionaire who previously led a Russian natural gas company, was also in Hamburg as of the latest MarineTraffic data from earlier this week. Akhmedov, who has not been sanctioned, kept the nine-deck, 115-meter Luna after an acrimonious divorce that was the largest divorce case heard in Britain’s legal history. The yacht features missile detection technology and bulletproof windows.
Several yachts reportedly owned by Russian oligarchs have been docked at a port in Barcelona, including the Solaris, which has been tied to Roman Abramovich, the billionaire who announced Wednesday that he would sell the Chelsea Football Club and donate proceeds to a foundation for people impacted by the invasion of Ukraine. Abramovich hasn’t been sanctioned.
The Galactica Super Nova, reportedly owned by Russian oil company executive Vagit Alekperov, left Barcelona on Saturday and crossed the Mediterranean to Tivat, Montenegro, before sailing south into the Adriatic Sea. While Alekperov hasn’t been sanctioned, he is president of Lukoil, which has been hit by US sanctions in the past.
Other Russian-linked yachts are in the Caribbean, including Eclipse, another yacht owned by Abramovich, which is among the world’s largest and includes a swimming pool that can be transformed into a dance floor, and the Anna, reportedly owned by oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, who once purchased a Florida mansion from former President Donald Trump. Rybolovlev hasn’t been sanctioned.
Courtney, the former ambassador, said that he expected Russian oligarchs took most of their assets out of the US after two billionaires were sanctioned in 2018, and predicted that they would try to move their yachts out of Western European countries to avoid them being seized.
“We are likely to see more of a redistribution geographically of some of those assets,” Courtney said, to countries “that are seen as less likely to sanction,” possibly in the Middle East.
Several yachts connected to Russian oligarchs have arrived in recent weeks in the Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago nation. They include the Clio, reportedly owned by oligarch Oleg Deripaska, which left Sri Lanka in early February and has been sailing between various Maldives atolls since then, according to MarineTraffic. Deripaska was sanctioned by the US in 2018.
None of the oligarchs mentioned in this story responded to requests for comment from CNN sent to their spokespeople, businesses or lawyers.
Perhaps the clearest example of a yacht with supposed ties to the Russian elite fleeing the West is a Russian-flagged ship named Graceful. Speculative news articles in the German media have reported that the ship belongs to Putin himself, although there’s no concrete evidence that that’s the case.
Graceful departed Hamburg in early February — roughly two weeks before the invasion of Ukraine — and sped to Kaliningrad, Russia, the MarineTraffic data shows. No location data has been recorded since it arrived in the Russian city on February 9.
Hackers last week successfully altered maritime traffic data to make it appear that the yacht’s destination was “hell” and it had run aground on Snake Island in Ukraine — where Ukrainian soldiers’ profane response to a Russian warship went viral on social media.
Sanctions will likely spark legal battles over the yachts, and require government officials to prove ownership, experts said.
“A sanctioned person may say to the government that the asset you have frozen is not one of my assets,” arguing that it is registered in a family member’s name or a shell corporation that has not specifically been sanctioned, said Raj Bhala, a professor at the University of Kansas Law School and a sanctions expert. ”The oligarch could argue before the government that you don’t really have the legal authority to seize my asset.”
But there are new dangers for the oligarchs’ yachts beyond legal proceedings: A Ukrainian ship engineer was arrested in the Spanish island of Mallorca for trying to sink a yacht owned by a Russian military export company executive, local news outlets reported.
“I don’t regret anything I’ve done and I would do it again,” the engineer declared in court on Sunday, according to the Majorca Daily Bulletin. “They were attacking innocents.”
Sanctioned shipping vessels seized, blocked from ports
Even as Biden and other officials have focused their public comments on oligarchs’ yachts, the US is also going after other shipping vessels with ties to Russia.
Last week, the Biden administration announced sanctions against five oil, cargo and container ships that the Treasury Department says are owned by a subsidiary of Promsvyazbank, a Russian bank that has given billions of dollars to support Russian defense companies. The sanctions block any Americans from doing business with Promsvyazbank.
French authorities seized one of the cargo ships, the Baltic Leader, on Saturday as it was headed from France to Saint Petersburg, Russia, “as part of an operation carried out in cooperation with US authorities,” according to France’s finance ministry. The ship is now anchored at a port in northern France, MarineTraffic data shows.
A port operator in Malaysia declined the request of one of the other vessels, an oil tanker named Linda, to dock there on March 5 “in order not to violate any sanctions,” Malaysia’s Ministry of Transport told CNN. The decision was first reported by Reuters.
Promsvyazbank did not respond to CNN’s request for comment, but has publicly denied that its subsidiary owned the Linda, and said it no longer owns the Baltic Leader. Two of the other US-sanctioned ships are now in the process of having their leases withdrawn from Promsvyazbank’s subsidiary, according to a statement from Russian company FESCO Transportation Group.
Some of the ships have been accused in recent years of violating past US sanctions by transporting Iranian oil. A Turkish petroleum company had agreed to service another one of the ships — an oil tanker named Pegas — at one of its terminals earlier this year, but after receiving a report that the ship may have been carrying Iranian cargo, the transaction was canceled, according to a spokesperson for the company, Opet.
CNN’s Majlie de Puy Kamp and Nadine Schmidt contributed to this report.
Superyacht owned by Russian oligarch Igor Sechin seized by France
Sechin is the CEO of Russian oil giant Rosneft. The European Union sanctioned Sechin earlier this week, describing him as one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “most trusted and closest advisors, as well as his personal friend.”
The yacht, named “Amore Vero” — or “True Love” in Italian — arrived at the French Mediterranean port of La Ciotat in January. It was scheduled to leave the port on April 1.
“Thank you to the French customs officers who are enforcing the European Union’s sanctions against those close to the Russian government,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said in a tweet.
Sechin was deputy prime minister of Russia from 2008 until 2012. The European Union said his connections to Putin are “long and deep,” with the two men maintaining daily contact.
Earlier this week, Le Maire announced that France has set up a task force to complete a census of financial assets and luxury goods owned by Russian personalities targeted by EU sanctions.
BP (BP) said on Sunday that it would exit its 19.75% stake in Rosneft and give up two seats on the company’s board.