heatwaves and a mild autumn and spring. every month apart from december has been warmer than average. you are watching bbc news. now, ourworld: the hunt for the russian superyachts. for years, many russian billionaires enjoyed lavish lifestyles in the west. they bought the most sought after villas, and holidayed on their beloved superyachts. but with russia s invasion of ukraine, theirfairytale came to an abrupt end. western sanctions sparked a game of cat and mouse between some of the world s most powerful nations and some of russia s richest men. there was a real frenzy around the world between democracies to see who could sanction the most people the most quickly, who could sanction the biggest yacht. we got stopped because this is a big, blue, easily visible, high profile target. for the first time, the head of the us kleptocapture task force reveals how they caught a superyacht. we saw it scrambling out of waters where we would normally be able to seize it. security, sec
on a much bigger target the $325 million yacht amadea. the amadea s a massive yacht. even among megayachts, it s a luxury villa that floats on the water. it has dozens of rooms, it has swimming pools and chandeliers, it has dining rooms that dwarf most people s dining rooms. the ownership of this 106m yacht is at the centre of a dispute. kleptocapture says it s owned by russian senator and billionaire businessman suleiman kerimov. he was one of the oligarchs who attended putin s summit at the start of the war. but kerimov denies owning the amadea. kerimov is famously discrete, he hasn t given an interview in the entire time that he s been a billionaire. but we do know some aspects about his life he s a man who likes the finer side
of life and doesn t always think that money should be spent in russia. in 2006, kerimov crashed his ferrari in the french riviera, nearly dying from his burns. a decade later, he was investigated in france, and in 2018, he was sanctioned by the us for being an official of the government of the russian federation. with a net worth around $10 billion, kerimov allegedly bought the amadea last year in august. it s on this transaction that kleptocapture focused their attention. it is improbable that that boat wasn t either purchased with or heavily financed by us dollars. that gives us a hook. while kleptocapture looked into the yacht s financing, amadea had slipped its moorings in the caribbean and was heading for the panama canal. two weeks later, it stopped in mexico and sailed west