Russian billionaires and oligarchs are steadily suffering the consequences of their country’s leader’s heinous decision to invade and attack Ukraine as the West slams the whole of Russia with brutal sanctions in an effort to punish and ultimately put a stop to Putin’s war.
As a result of the sanctions, Russia’s richest are facing the freezing and seizure of their biggest assets, such as their private jets and superyachts. And it seems they’re unsurprisingly doing everything in their power to keep their big, fancy boats out of harm’s way.
Recently we reported on Igor Sechin, an alleged close friend of the violent Russian dictatorial president, who reportedly ordered the captain of his now-seized superyacht to depart a French port and sail to Turkey as fast as possible, as soon as he discovered that his boat was listed for sanctions from the United States and Europe.
Now, the 230-foot superyacht with room for 28 guests and crew belonging to another Russian billionaire has mysteriously gone missing amid the brutal sanctions, according to a recent report from the Daily Beast.
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The superyacht, dubbed the Galactica Super Nova, belonging to Lukoil CEO Vagit Alekperov, recently sailed from Barcelona to Tivat, Montenegro, ultimately arriving at its destination on March 1st. But data from the yacht-tracking group MarineTraffic shows that just a mere day after its arrival, the massive boat departed again.
An official with the port in Montenegro officially confirmed that the superyacht was no longer there.
According to reporting from Marine Traffic, as well as its competitors VesselFinder and VesselsValue, directly following its departure from the port, Galactica’s automatic tracking system (AIS) was no longer pinging out signals. Per the report from the Beast, as of Wednesday afternoon Central European Time, the boat still had not updated its location.
The head of superyachts at VesselsValue, Sam Tucker, confirmed that it is legally required of all yachts of Galactica’s massive size to keep their AIS turned on “at all times.”
“For the past 12 months, we have had a very reliable signal coming from this vessel, so after seeing it [leave] Porto Montenegro, we are very surprised that there has been no signal received from either our satellites or ground stations,” Tucker explained.
A marine lawyer based out of London, Duncan Bateson, stated that it’s highly likely “if captains of Russian-linked boats are turning off their AIS tracker, then it’s because they’re trying to evade being tracked.”
While there’s been no solid confirmation that Alekperov is intentionally hiding his boat amid the brutal sanction crackdowns in Russia, the timing surrounding the mysterious disappearance of the massive yacht certainly cannot be ignored. Speaking on the sanction crackdown, Bateson said, “We’ve never seen anything like it.”
Several yachts belonging to Russian oligarchs and billionaires have reportedly relocated to the Indian Ocean in almost record-breaking time, assumably in an effort to keep these assets protected from seizure.
If you ask me, this is just proof that what the West is doing is working.
Read the full report from the Daily Beast here.
Featured image via Max Pixel Public Domain
