Marina di Carrara, Italy:
Italian authorities seized a mega-yacht on Friday at the center of a mystery about its property, as it was speculated it might even belong to the Russian president.
“Scheherazade”, valued at an estimated $700 million, has been the subject of an investigation into its property by Italy’s financial police.
The Italian investigation has helped establish “significant economic and business ties between the person who officially owns the Scheherazade and prominent people in the Russian government,” as well as Russian figures sanctioned by the West after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance said in a statement.
Following the investigation, “The Economy and Finance Minister, Daniele Franco, has signed a decree confiscating the yacht,” the statement said.
It had been moored for several months for maintenance work at a shipyard in the Marina di Carrara, in the western coastal town of Massa.
But the yacht was back on the water and appeared to be about to set sail on Friday, an AFP photographer said before the Italian government statement was issued.
But the mystery remains unsolved: whose does “Scheherazade” belong? A Russian oligarch? Vladimir Putin?
The 140-meter yacht, built by Germany’s Luerssen in 2020, features two helicopters, a swimming pool and a cinema, according to the SuperYachtFan website, which researches yachts and their owners.
Italian police said they were doing their best to identify the owner.
“It is not always easy to grant ownership of a yacht,” a source close to the Italian probe told AFP in late March.
The same source said earlier Friday that there was “nothing new” in the investigation.
Investigators from the anti-corruption foundation of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny link the yacht to Putin.
They quoted a crew list in their possession that included several members of the Russian Federal Defense Service charged with Putin’s security.
But the Italian Sea Group said in a statement that the yacht was “not due to the ownership of Russian President Vladimir Putin”.
The shipyard owner said his assessment was based on “the documentation in his possession and the findings of the checks carried out by the relevant authorities”.
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