Russia billionaires move superyachts to Maldives as sanctions tighten, data shows

Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska attends a session of the St. Petersburg Worldwide Financial Discussion board (SPIEF) in Saint Petersburg, Russia, June 3, 2021. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina

NEW DELHI, March 2 (Reuters) – At the very least 5 superyachts owned by Russian billionaires had been anchored or cruising on Wednesday in Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation that doesn’t have an extradition treaty with america, ship monitoring knowledge confirmed.

The vessels’ arrival within the archipelago off the coast of Sri Lanka follows the imposition of extreme Western sanctions on Russia in reprisal for its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Late on Wednesday Forbes reported that Germany had seized Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov’s mega yacht in a Hamburg shipyard.

Usmanov was on a listing of billionaires to face sanctions from the European Union on Monday. A Forbes report based mostly on three sources within the yacht business mentioned his 512-foot yacht Dilbar, valued at $600 million, was seized by German authorities.

German authorities didn’t instantly reply to Reuters inquiries. Forbes mentioned representatives for Usmanov didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Earlier, the Clio superyacht, owned by Oleg Deripaska, the founding father of aluminium large Rusal, who was sanctioned by america in 2018, was anchored off the capital Male on Wednesday, in line with transport database MarineTraffic.

The Titan, owned by Alexander Abramov, a co-founder of metal producer Evraz, arrived on Feb. 28.

Three additional yachts owned by Russian billionaires had been seen cruising in Maldives waters on Wednesday, the info confirmed. They embrace the 88-metre (288 ft) Nirvana owned by Russia’s richest man, Vladimir Potanin. Most vessels had been final seen anchored in Center Jap ports earlier within the yr.

A spokesperson for Maldives’ authorities didn’t reply to a request for remark.

The USA has mentioned it can take strict motion to grab property of sanctioned Russians.

“This coming week, we are going to launch a multilateral Transatlantic job power to determine, search out, and freeze the belongings of sanctioned Russian firms and oligarchs – their yachts, their mansions, and every other ill-gotten positive aspects that we are able to discover and freeze beneath the legislation,” the White Home mentioned in a tweet on Sunday.

Washington imposed sanctions on Deripaska and different influential Russians in 2018 due to their ties to President Vladimir Putin after alleged Russian interference within the 2016 U.S. election, which Moscow denies.

Reporting by Alasdair Pal in New Delhi
Further reporting by Mohamed Junayd, Modifying by William Maclean

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