US seizes $90M yacht of Russian oligarch with close Putin ties in Spain – New York Post

The US government seized the $90 million yacht of a Russian oligarch with close ties to Vladimir Putin in Spain Monday, part of the Biden administration’s efforts to target the assets of Russia’s wealthy over the invasion of Ukraine, the Justice Department said.

The 255-foot yacht Tango, owned by Viktor Vekselberg, was boarded by Spanish and US officials while docked at the Marina Real in the Mediterranean port of Palma de Mallorca under a warrant issued by a federal judge in Washington, according to a statement.

The warrant claimed that the Tango was subject to forfeiture over violations of bank fraud, money laundering and sanctions statutes.

Vikselberg, who is estimated to be worth $5.7 billion, was among a group whose assets were seized by the US Treasury in early March for “enabling Putin’s unjustified and unprovoked war.”

Others targeted by the asset seizure included Putin himself and Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitry Peskov.

Federal prosecutors said Vekselberg, 64, bought the luxury yacht in 2011 but has used a number of shell companies to both hide his stake in the vessel and to avoid oversight into his financial transactions involving US banks.

A Civil Guard stands by the yacht called Tango in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. — The US government seized Viktor Vekselberg’s 255-foot yacht.

Russian billionaire and businessman Viktor Vekselberg seen during the 24th Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum. — Vikselberg’s assets were also seized by the US Treasury in early March for “enabling Putin’s unjustified and unprovoked war.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and businessman Viktor Vekselberg attend a ceremony unveiling the memorial to members of the resistance at Nazis concentration camps during World War Two. — Vekselberg used a number of shell companies to both hide his stake in the vessel and to avoid oversight into his financial transactions involving US banks, according to prosecutors.

“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,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Vekselberg is the founder of the Renova Group, a company that has interests in energy, metals, tech and mining markets. He was also sanctioned along with a number of oligarchs in April 2018 for engaging in a “range of malign activity around the globe,” the Treasury Department said at the time.

Those activities involved the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014, instigating violence in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, supplying the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad with weapons and meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

The seizure of the Tango was coordinated by the KleptoCapture task force that was created by the Justice Department in March to go after Russian officials linked to the Ukrainian invasion.