Germany and France have taken the lead in the seizure of luxury yachts belonging to Russian oligarchs that are regular visitors in the waters off the Balearic Islands. Just yesterday the immobilisation or “arrest” in the port of Marseille of the Amore Vero of Igor Sechin, a Putin confidant and chief of staff placed in charge of the energy giant Rosneft, was formalised. The interception occurred as he was about to leave French territorial waters.
Video footage shows the 86-meter Amore Vero sailing in the waters off Ibiza and Formentera, where it has been a regular since it was built nine years ago at a Dutch shipyard. The boat was then known as St. Princess Olga, which was in force until the 2017 divorce of the tycoon and his wife Olga Sechina.
Initiatives against the Russian oligarchs’ luxury yachts have acquired symbolic value amid the sanctions resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The most significant seizure came from Germany, which immobilised the Dilbar of Alisher Usmanov, Russia’s third largest fortune at 13 billion euros. The London Arsenal shareholder owns the world’s largest yacht in terms of tonnage. At 156 metres, it was in the Hamburg shipyard for repairs and winter overhaul. The UK has also frozen Usmanov’s assets in parallel.
Spain has allowed itself to be overtaken by its European Union partners in adopting drastic measures to intercept the large yachts of Russian oligarchs. The Government has limited itself to request the list of mega yachts from the Balearic Islands nautical facilities. Given that these assets are usually acquired through intermediary companies that are difficult to identify, and that they sail under flags of expediency, the detection network has numerous holes and is ineffective. In fact, the Galactica Super Nova of Vagit Alekperov, president of Lukoil and also a neighbor of Balearic waters, already left the port of Barcelona as soon as rumors of reprisals against the marine giants of the oligarchs began to spread.
A third yacht immobilized by Germany in Hamburg is the Luna, originally designed for Roman Abramovich. The Chelsea owner’s toy has two helipads and houses a small submarine. It also has a Balearic history. It was sold to Azeri businessman Farkhad Akhmedov, who is close to Putin and has already been sanctioned by the US authorities.
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