For about three years, a superyacht named Amadea sat moored in San Diego Bay while the U.S. government paid the tab.
The 348-foot boat wasn't on vacation.
The boat was seized off Fiji's coast in 2022, part of the post-invasion campaign against wealthy Russians tied to the Kremlin.
The Justice Department's case named Suleiman Kerimov, a Russian mining tycoon, as the true beneficial owner. Kerimov has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018.
Amadea became the highest-profile test of Task Force KleptoCapture, a Biden-administration program aimed at sanctioned oligarchs and their assets.
Every month the ownership fight dragged on, the bill grew. Maintaining, crewing, insuring, and docking the yacht cost $600,000 to $1 million a month.
That added up to an estimated $36 million by the time it sold.
U.S. officials once thought the yacht was worth serious money.
A 2024 filing cited an outside appraisal of $230 million.
The government never announced the sale price; a later document showed it was $187 million.
Get the free Always Be Buying eBook and learn the simple system for building wealth on any income
The sale came after a long legal fight. A U.S. District Court judge ordered forfeiture, and on Sept. 10, 2025, the government directed that Amadea be auctioned.
About a month later, the U.S. Marshals Service opened sealed bids and picked a winner.
The Marshals Service normally keeps buyer names private under federal privacy exemptions, and it did. But a government document and yacht-industry executives later identified the buyer: 27-year-old Abbas Sajwani, a Dubai property developer.
Forbes reported that Sajwani's winning bid came in $1 million above the next-highest offer.
Abbas Sajwani's father, Hussain, runs DAMAC Properties, a Dubai real estate giant. A flamboyant developer with close business ties to Trump, Hussain has been labeled the "Donald of Dubai."
DAMAC partnered with the Trump Organization in 2013 on the Middle East's first Trump-branded golf course. The course opened in 2017.
Trump has called Hussain "one of the most respected business leaders in the Middle East and indeed the world."
On Jan. 7, 2025, Hussain joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago to unveil a data-center investment in the U.S. The project is worth $20 billion.
In April 2025, he posted photos from a White House breakfast with Elon Musk.
The younger Sajwani runs his own company, AHS Properties, which bought Dubai's Shangri-La Hotel for a reported $300 million. His fortune has been pegged at $1.9 billion by Forbes.
"Many people use yachts for holidays," Sajwani told Forbes, adding that for him the Amadea is more of a place to live.
As for the boat itself, there's nothing basic about it. Built in 2017 by German yard Lurssen, Amadea has six decks, space for 16 guests, and a crew of 36.
The extras include a glass winter garden, an infinity pool with a swim-up bar, a 4D theater with moving seats, a party deck with lights and lasers, a wellness area with a hammam and sauna, and a galley with a lobster tank. The bow is wrapped in a five-ton stainless-steel albatross, and the helicopter pad is now a pickleball court.
The sale did not happen in a quiet market. There are more than 3,500 billionaires in the world, and shipyards have long waitlists.
What happens to the $187 million? No use has been announced, though a May 2024 U.S. aid law allows proceeds from seized Russian state assets in the U.S. to be used to benefit Ukraine.
The yacht, meanwhile, is still on the move. Tracking data shows it stopped in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Charleston, South Carolina, and yacht-industry executives described the stops as routine maintenance and small improvements.
For most investors, the Amadea story is more than a rich-person soap opera. It's a reminder that even the most glamorous assets come with costs, and the person who gets the yacht isn't always the one who paid to keep it afloat.
Download the free Always Be Buying eBook and start putting your money to work today
