Russian billionaires move superyachts to Maldives

At least five superyachts owned by Russian billionaires were anchored or cruising on Wednesday in the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation that does not have an extradition treaty with the US, ship tracking data showed.

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

The Clio superyacht, owned by Oleg Deripaska, founder of aluminium giant Rusal, who was sanctioned by the US in 2018, anchored off the capital Male on Wednesday, according to shipping database MarineTraffic.

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

Three other yachts owned by Russian billionaires were seen cruising in Maldives waters on Wednesday, the data shows. They include the 88m Nirvana owned by Russia’s richest man, Vladimir Potanin. Most vessels were last seen anchored in Middle Eastern ports earlier in the year.

A spokesperson for the Maldives government did not respond to a request for comment.

The US has said it will take strict action to seize the property of sanctioned Russians.

“This coming week we will launch a multilateral Transatlantic task force to identify, hunt down, and freeze the assets of sanctioned Russian companies and oligarchs — their yachts, their mansions, and any other ill-gotten gains that we can find and freeze under the law,” the White House tweeted on Sunday.

Washington imposed sanctions on Deripaska and other influential Russians in 2018 because of their ties to President Vladimir Putin after alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, which Moscow denies.

Reuters