At least five superyachts owned by Russian billionaires were anchored or sailing Wednesday in the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, ship-tracking data showed.
The arrival of the ships in the archipelago off the coast of Sri Lanka follows the imposition of harsh Western sanctions on Russia in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.
The Clio superyacht, owned by Oleg Deripaska, the founder of aluminum giant Rusal, who was sanctioned by the United States in 2018, anchored off the capital Male on Wednesday, according to the MarineTraffic shipping database.
The Titan, owned by Alexander Abramov, co-founder of steel producer Evraz, arrived on February 28.
Three other yachts owned by Russian billionaires were seen sailing in Maldivian waters on Wednesday, data showed. They include the 88-meter Nirvana owned by Russia’s richest man, Vladimir Potanin. Most of the ships were last seen anchored in Middle Eastern ports earlier in the year.
A Maldivian government spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
The United States has said it will take strict measures to seize the properties of the sanctioned Russians.
“Next 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 we can find and freeze under the law.the White House said in a tweet on Sunday.
Washington imposed sanctions on Deripaska and other influential Russians in 2018 over their ties to President Vladimir Putin following alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, which Moscow denies.
Source: Gestion
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