The United States of America has been authorized to seize a Boeing 787-8 aircraft and a Gulfstream G650ER aircraft owned and controlled by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, pursuant to a seizure warrant from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, which found that the airplanes are subject to seizure and forfeiture based on probable cause of violations of the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA) and the recent sanctions issued against Russia.
The order from a federal judge in New York, is one of several sanctions from the United States and other western countries targeting pro-Putin’s Russian billionaires since Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February.
According to the US Justice Department, Abramovich owns the aircraft through shell firms based in Cyprus, Jersey and the British Virgin Islands.
