GROUNDED

Feds Wants to Seize Two Jets Owned by Putin’s Pal Roman Abramovich

A federal judge has signed off on a warrant after prosecutors alleged the planes were flown to Russia in March, in violation of export restrictions.

On Monday, a federal judge in New York signed a warrant authorizing the Department of Justice to seize two jets owned by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. According to documents filed in federal court in Manhattan, one jet is a Gulfstream and the other a Boeing valued at $350 million alone. Prosecutors allege that both planes were flown to Russia in March, violating U.S. export restrictions that had been imposed after Russia invaded Ukraine. Court records indicate that the Boeing is currently in Dubai and the Gulfstream is in Russia. The seizure is the most recent of many economic attacks against Russian billionaires over the war in Ukraine. Abramovich has also been sanctioned in the U.K., costing him his ownership of the Chelsea Football Club and his multimillion-pound property portfolio.