1 year ago
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A $200m (£163m) superyacht owned by Viktor Medvedchuk, an oligarch and person of Vladimir Putin who is nether sanctions, is to beryllium sold astatine auction aft its seizure successful Croatia earlier this year.
The Ukrainian authorities said a Croatian tribunal had ruled that Medvedchuk’s 92.5-metre Royal Romance yacht should beryllium transferred to the Ukrainian Asset Recovery and Management Agency (Arma), which said it would “preserve the economical worth by selling it astatine auction”.
It would beryllium archetypal specified merchantability connected behalf of the radical of Ukraine since occidental governments imposed restrictions connected the assets of hundreds of oligarchs aft Russia’s penetration of Ukraine successful February.
Medvedchuk, 68, a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician, was arrested successful Ukraine successful April and handed implicit to Russia successful a captive speech successful September. He is often referred to arsenic the “dark prince” of Ukrainian politics, and Putin is godfather to his girl Daria.
The Arma, a peculiar subdivision of the Ukrainian authorities tasked with “finding, tracing and absorption of assets derived from corruption”, said its agents had flown to Croatia and “inspected the arrested yacht belonging to the household members of a people’s lawman and 1 of the leaders of a governmental unit banned successful Ukraine”.
It said: “Arma searched for the specified plus wrong the model of the transgression proceedings and subsequently aft imposing the apprehension received the elite spot to sphere the economical worth by selling it astatine auctions.”
Croatian constabulary raided the yacht past period connected behalf of the FBI, according to the Croatian paper Jutarnji list. It reported that a tribunal successful Split granted a hunt warrant petition from the US justness section connected 15 November, and confirmed that the hunt took spot connected 19 November. The justice Dinko Mešin is said to person told the paper that the hunt warrant named Medvedchuk and his wife, Oksana Marchenko, successful transportation with alleged wealth laundering.
Royal Romance, which was built by the Dutch superyacht contractor Feadship successful 2005, has cabins for 14 guests and abstraction for 21 crew, arsenic good arsenic a 4-metre-wide swimming excavation with “flowing waterfall cascading implicit the stern”.
In September, a 72.5-metre superyacht seized from a Russian oligarch nether sanctions, Dmitry Pumpyansky, was sold astatine auction to an undisclosed purchaser for $37.5m, successful the archetypal merchantability of its kind since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The yacht, which had a swimming pool, a 3D cinema room, a gym, a whirlpool bath and a afloat equipped spa – was not sold for the payment of the Ukrainian radical but for the US concern slope JP Morgan, which claimed Pumpyansky owed it €20.5m.
English (US)