Russian oligarchs seek safe port for superyachts targeted with sanctions

(AP) - The superyacht Dilbar has two helipads, berths for more than 130 people and a 25-metre swimming pool that itself can accommodate another superyacht.

Dilbar was launched in 2016 at a reported cost of more than 648 million US dollars (£490 million). Five years later, its purported owner, the Kremlin-aligned Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, was already dissatisfied.

He sent the vessel to a German shipyard last autumn for a retrofit reportedly costing several hundred million.

Dilbar was in drydock on Thursday when the United States and European Union announced economic sanctions against Mr Usmanov – a metals magnate and early investor in Facebook – over his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and in retaliation for the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

US President Joe Biden addressed Russian oligarchs during his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, warning: “We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.”

But seizing the behemoth boats could prove challenging. Russian billionaires have had decades to shield their money and assets in the West from governments that might try to tax or seize them.

Several media outlets reported last week that German authorities had impounded the Dilbar. But a spokeswoman for Hamburg state’s economy ministry told The Associated Press no such action had yet been taken because it had been unable to establish ownership of the yacht.

Dilbar is flagged in the Cayman Islands and registered to a holding company in Malta, banking havens where the global ultra-rich often park their wealth.

Working with the UK-based yacht valuation firm VesselsValue, the AP compiled a list of 56 superyachts – generally defined as luxury vessels exceeding 79ft in length – believed to be owned by a few dozen Kremlin-aligned oligarchs. The yachts have a combined market value estimated at more than 5.4 billion US dollars (£4 billion).

The AP then used two online services – VesselFinder and MarineTraffic – to plot the last known locations of the yachts as relayed by their onboard tracking beacons.

Many are anchored in the Mediterranean and Caribbean. But more than a dozen were under way or had already arrived in remote ports in small nations such as the Maldives and Montenegro, potentially beyond the reach of Western sanctions. Three had gone dark, their transponders last pinging just outside the Bosporus in Turkey – gateway to the Black Sea and the southern Russian ports of Sochi and Novorossiysk.

Graceful, a German-built Russian-flagged superyacht believed to belong to Mr Putin, left a repair yard in Hamburg, Germany, on February 7, two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. It is now moored in the Russian Baltic port of Kaliningrad, beyond the reach of Western sanctions imposed against him this past week.

French authorities seized the superyacht Amore Vero on Thursday in the Mediterranean resort town of La Ciotat. The boat is believed to belong to Igor Sechin, a Putin ally who runs Russian oil giant Rosneft, which has been on the US sanctions list since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

The French Finance Ministry said in a statement that customs authorities boarded the 289ft Amore Vero and discovered its crew was preparing for an urgent departure, even though planned repair work was not finished.

The 213ft Lady M was seized by Italian authorities on Friday while moored in the Rivieria port town of Imperia. In a tweet announcing the seizure, a spokesman for Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the yacht was the property of sanctioned steel baron Alexei Mordashov, listed as Russia’s wealthiest man with a fortune of about 30 billion US dollars (£23 billion).

But Mr Mordashov’s 464ft Nord was safely at anchor on Friday in the Seychelles, a tropical island chain in the Indian Ocean not under the jurisdiction of US or EU sanctions. Among the world’s biggest superyachts, Nord has a market value of 500 million US dollars (£377 million).

Dennis Cauiser, a superyacht analyst with VesselFinder, said the escalating US and EU sanctions on Putin-aligned oligarchs and Russian banks have sent a chill through the industry, with boatbuilders and staff worried they will not be paid. It can cost upwards of 50 million US dollars (£38 million) a year to crew, fuel and maintain a superyacht.

Most of the Russians on the annual Forbes list of billionaires have not yet been sanctioned by the United States and its allies, and their superyachts are still cruising the world’s oceans.

The 237ft Stella Maris, which was seen by an AP journalist docked this past week in Nice, France, is believed to be owned by Rashid Sardarov, a Russian billionaire oil and gas magnate.

The crash of the rouble and the tanking of Moscow stock market have depleted the fortunes of Russia’s elite. Mr Cauiser said he expects some oligarch superyachts will soon quietly be listed by brokers at fire-sale prices.

On Thursday, the US Treasury Department issued a new round of sanctions that included a news release citing Mr Usmanov’s close ties to Putin and photos of Dilbar and the oligarch’s private jet – a custom-built 209ft Airbus A340-300 passenger liner.

But Mr Usmanov said in a statement issued through the website of the International Fencing Federation, of which he has served as president since 2008: “I believe that such a decision is unfair and the reasons employed to justify the sanctions are a set of false and defamatory allegations damaging my honour, dignity and business reputation.”

Russian metals and petroleum magnate Roman Abramovich is believed to have bought or built at least seven of the world’s largest yachts, some of which he has since sold to other oligarchs.

Location transponders showed the 533ft Solaris – launched by Mr Abramovich in 2010 with an undersea bay that reportedly holds a mini-sub – was moored in Barcelona, Spain, on Saturday.

His 600 million US dollar (£454 million) Eclipse, which is eight floors tall and on the water since last year, set sail from St Maarten late Thursday and is under way in the Caribbean Sea, destination undisclosed.

Under mounting pressure, Mr Abramovich announced this past week he would sell Chelsea FC and give the net proceeds “for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine”.