EVERETT, Wash. — It's not clear whether Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov had plans to visit Puget Sound this spring — the French Riviera is more the style of the U.S.-sanctioned mining and energy multibillionaire.

But on April 29, the Amadea, a 348-foot, $300 million-plus superyacht said to be owned by Kerimov, arrived in the Port of Everett to have some work done at a local shipyard.

A sleek, white shark of a ship with a knifelike bow, raked profile and quarters for 16 guests and 36 crew, Amadea swanned past Everett's industrial waterfront with a tug escort and all the made-for-TV glamour of an international celebrity fugitive. Kerimov, of course, was not on board.

In 2022, Amadea ("God's love" in Latin) was seized in Fiji at the request of U.S. authorities who claim Kerimov has enabled Russian aggression in Ukraine and Syria. Money laundering and conspiracy were also alleged.

At the time, the seizure was hailed as a warning to "every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide — not even in the remotest part of the world," as a deputy U.S. attorney general put it in a press statement.

But as any boat owner in this boat-focused community will tell you, seizing a superyacht is one thing. Maintaining its value as an asset is another — especially when the asset is the size of a ferry and equipped with a theater, a gym, beauty salon, teak decks, 30-foot-long pool, helipad and twin 5,766-horsepower diesels.

"They're saying it's costing us $7 million a year to keep it up," said Chris Petersen, a retired fisherman who runs a metal coatings shop on West Marine View Drive, a few blocks from the port and who, like many here, has been following the superyacht saga since April 29.

Indeed, fuel, maintenance, insurance and salary for the crew of Amadea during its impoundment in San Diego ran around $740,000 a month, according to federal court filings by the Marshals Service.

In February, the Justice Department told a federal court it intended to halt this "excessive ... drain on the public" purse by auctioning off Amadea, which the government claims Kerimov acquired in 2021.

But selling off this excessive drain has been complicated.

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