Thursday, March 24, 2022

Captain of Russian oligarch's $85 million superyacht stuck in Norway says crew is catching and barbecuing fish after local suppliers refused to refuel the vessel: report

Kate Duffy
Tue, March 22, 2022

A Russian oligarch's yacht captain said the crew caught fish as suppliers refused to fuel the ship.


The superyacht believed to belong to Vladimir Strzhalkovsky has been stuck in Norway for a month.


Strzhalkovsky hasn't been sanctioned by the EU, which means Norway can't seize the vessel.


The crew aboard a Russian oligarch's superyacht in Norway is catching and barbecuing fish as local businesses refuse to refuel the vessel, which has left it stranded, the boat's captain told The Wall Street Journal.

The vessel, Ragnar, is believed to be owned by Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, a former KGB agent who has ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin but has avoided sanctions, the outlet reported.

Ragnar, worth $85 million, according to SuperYacht Fan, has been stuck in the port of Narvik, Norway, for over a month because fuel suppliers are refusing to do business with Strzhalkovsky.

Strzhalkovsky isn't among the Russian oligarchs who have been hit by Western sanctions, but Norwegian fuel suppliers told the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK last week that they didn't want to help any entities associated with Russia.

The US, the UK, and the European Union have levied sanctions against oligarchs believed to be close to Putin, which has led to seizures of yachts and private jets.

In some countries, people have protested against Russian goods and entities that aren't sanctioned. Dockworkers in the UK this month refused to handle consignments of Russian natural gas, despite UK sanctions at the time allowing the import of the goods.

With no one willing to refuel the boat and nowhere to go, the crew of the Ragnar has been barbecuing freshly caught cod, Rob Lancaster, the yacht's captain, told The Journal.

"We did not realize why there was so much fuss with us," Lancaster told The Journal. "It happened so quickly."

Lancaster told NRK last week that the 16 crew members on board were from Western countries and "have nothing to do with the owner of the boat."

While the Ragnar is not subject to sanctions, a number of oligarchs' yachts have been impounded in Europe. A $75 million yacht belonging to the Russian businessman Dmitry Pumpyansky was seized on Monday after it docked in Gibraltar, the local government told Insider.

It followed Spain's detention of a $153 million superyacht linked to the arms tycoon Sergey Chemezov, France impounding a $120 million vessel linked to Putin's confidant Igor Sechin, and Italy seizing a $578 million vessel linked to the oligarch Andrey Melnichenko.

Sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich's $600 million superyacht is cruising off Turkey's coast after 8 days' sailing without a destination

Kate Duffy
Mon, March 21, 2022

Roman Abramovich's yacht was off the coast of Turkey on Monday, ship-tracking data shows.


His $600 million yacht, Solaris, is "scenic cruising" without a port destination, per MarineTraffic.


It might be trying to confuse people about its final destination, a MarineTraffic spokesperson said.


A luxury superyacht owned by the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich that has been sailing without a destination for more than a week updated its status for the first time since leaving port, suggesting it has no immediate intention of docking, ship-tracking data shows.

Solaris, a 140-feet vessel worth $600 million, was off the southwestern coast of Turkey and heading west, according to the tracking website MarineTraffic. On Monday, the website showed that the vessel's status changed to "scenic cruising" from "awaiting orders," the status it had shown since leaving Tivat, Montenegro, on March 13.

Solaris was off the coast of Turkey on Monday, according to the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic.

Georgios Hatzimanolis, a spokesperson for MarineTraffic, told Insider that though yachts and ships can change their status whenever they want, "most likely in this instance" Solaris is "using the status to confuse people from where its final destination is."

"Lots of speculation on if it will be Turkey, Israel, or even possibly the UAE," Hatzimanolis said.

The locations of luxury assets owned by Russian oligarchs have been closely monitored since sanctions were levied against many of the country's elite in response to Moscow's ordering troops into Ukraine. European countries including Italy and France have seized yachts, private jets, and other assets from several sanctioned oligarchs.

Abramovich, whose net worth is estimated at about $13.6 billion, according to Bloomberg, was sanctioned by the UK and the European Union, meaning his assets have been frozen and he's been barred from doing business there.

Solaris had been docked in the Barcelona shipyard of the Spanish yacht-maintenance firm MB92 since late 2021. It left on March 8, shortly before Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, was sanctioned.

Before the announcement of sanctions, some of Russia's wealthiest people sought to move their expensive boats and private jets to jurisdictions where they might be able to protect them from seizure.

Abramovich's other superyacht, Eclipse, said to be worth $700 million, was just off the coast of Crete, a Greek island in the Mediterranean Sea, on Monday, according to MarineTraffic. The yacht has been sailing since it left St. Martin in the Caribbean on February 21, the ship-tracking website shows.


How can a $700 million superyacht sitting in an Italian port ‘belong to no one’? Russian sleuths say it’s Putin’s

Vivienne Walt
Tue, March 22, 2022

In the legend of Tales From the Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade is a beautiful virgin who escapes being murdered by the king by telling him stories at night.

Scheherazade is also President Vladimir Putin’s $700 million superyacht, according to Russian investigative journalists—and its ability to survive being seized by Western governments will require far more cunning than storytelling.

The yacht, currently moored in the Marina di Carrara on Italy’s Tuscany coast, is gargantuan, even by the outsize dimensions of Russian oligarchs’ superyachts. At about 459 feet long, it has six levels of decks, two helipads with a hidden helicopter hangar, a spa, huge living room and dining room, a swimming pool and three saunas, as well as an upper-level “owner’s area” that includes its own private spa.
“Belongs to no one”

For weeks, there have been questions about who owns the superyacht, which is registered in the Cayman Islands through a shell company. But on Monday, the group headed by jailed Russian activist Alexis Navalny claimed in a YouTube video that the vessel belongs to Putin himself.

“On paper, it belongs to no one, and sits quietly in an Italian port,” the video says in Russian. “Watch the video, and you will find out how Putin owns this yacht through figureheads, and how we can take this yacht away from him.”

The group obtained the all-Russian crew list for the yacht, and found that almost all of them were employed by Putin’s security detail, the Federal Protective Service, known by its Russian acronym FSO.

Earlier this month, the Scheherazade’s British captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, told the New York Times he was under “a watertight nondisclosure agreement” about who the superyacht’s true owners were, but claimed he had never seen Putin on board.

But Navalny’s group says the crew’s employment status suggests that the Russian leader owns the vessel. If that hunch is correct, it would be subject to immediate seizure under U.S., U.K., and European Union sanctions.

Superyachts have been one of the most visible signs of Russian oligarchs’ mammoth wealth—and, recently, one of the most often seized. French police seized a $120 million vessel allegedly owned by Igor Sechin, head of the Russian oil giant Rosneft, on the Mediterranean coast earlier this month. Spanish officials impounded two more yachts, including the Crescent, a 443-foot superyacht also thought to belong to Sechin.

Another boat, owned by former KGB agent Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, was stranded in Norway when no one would sell it fuel. And on Monday, the 460-foot superyacht Solaris, owned by the sanctioned billionaire oligarch Roman Abramovich, was spotted parked in the harbor of Bodrum, Turkey; that country has not implemented sanctions.
Putin’s $200 billion

Western governments face a daunting task in tracking down Putin’s true wealth, which could amount to some $200 billion, according to financier Bill Browder, who told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2017 that Putin’s inner circle of oligarchs split their billions 50-50 with the Russian president. The assets include a $1.3 billion mansion on the Black Sea, funded through a Russian health project in which Putin allies were vastly overpaid for medical supplies.

The Scheherazade, in fact, might not be Putin’s only superyacht. Last month, the vessel Graceful made a hurried departure from its berth in Hamburg as the EU was drafting tough new sanctions just days before Putin sent Russian tanks into Ukraine. Believed to be linked to Putin, that superyacht is thought to be worth $100 million.

But untangling ownership details, and pinpointing them to Putin, will be immensely complicated.

In that, Navalny’s team has joined forces with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, or OCCRP, a Sarajevo-based group of investigative journalists, to create a database of oligarch wealth. It publishes its “Russian Asset Tracker” in Russian, English, and Spanish.

The journalists say they are focusing on “a new generation of wealthy men obedient to Putin”—many of whom are now under Western sanctions and whose funds Western governments believe are crucial to funding the Ukraine war. The database lists mansions, superyachts, private planes, and other property, so far totaling about $17.5 billion. The group is sure that will grow, and invites people to send details of “anything we’ve missed.”

“Figuring out who owns what, and how much of it, is a tall order even for experienced police investigators,” the journalists say. “We decided to follow the trail.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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