‘Putin’s superyacht’ faces seizure from Italian marina
Italy has been urged to seize a superyacht allegedly owned by Vladimir Putin after an investigation by the anti-corruption unit of Alexei Navalny, Russia’s jailed opposition leader.
Navalny’s team said the £500 million (NZ$956 million) yacht was staffed by officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSO).
The vessel, called Scheherazade, is undergoing repairs and maintenance at a marina in western Italy. It is said to be the world’s most expensive yacht whose owner has not been identified.
Associates of Navalny have demanded that the Italian authorities confiscate the 140m boat, which has a swimming pool with a retractable roof that converts into a disco dance floor.
Scheherazade, which sails under a Cayman Islands flag, was launched in 2020 and it is registered to a company called Bielor Assets Ltd, domiciled in the Marshall Islands, but the real owner remains shrouded in secrecy.
Details of the investigation were published online yesterday and threaten to further embarrass Putin. Associates of Navalny have previously identified an extravagant £760 million palace on the Black Sea coast as allegedly belonging to the Russian president, prompting demonstrators to lampoon him by holding golden toilet brushes at opposition rallies.
Navalny is today expected to hear a verdict in the latest criminal case against him, in which prosecutors are seeking 13 years in a maximum security penal colony over alleged fraud and contempt of court.
In a posting on social media, Maria Pevchikh, who works for Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, said: ‘‘We’ve been investigating Putin’s corruption for over a decade, and there is one thing we know for sure – Putin never keeps assets under his own name.
‘‘A dozen of Putin’s personal guards and servants are constantly maintaining one of the world’s largest yachts, docked in an Italian port. We think that this is solid enough proof that Scheherezade belongs to Putin himself and must be immediately seized.’’