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The shipbuilder behind the world’s largest yacht describes it as “one of the most sophisticated and challenging yachts ever built”, with “places of entertainment and recreation never seen before” such a ship and an interior of “rare and exceptional luxury materials”.
It has two helipads and the largest yacht pool ever built, and can accommodate 36 guests and 96 employees. This week, too, he was confiscated by German authorities over his ties to a Russian oligarch.
Germany’s federal police said on Tuesday that “through extensive investigations despite offshore hiding” it had found that the yacht was owned by Gulbahor Ismailova, the sister of Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov.
After police confirmed to Brussels that the vessel’s owner had been sanctioned, the superyacht – named Dilbar, Usmanov’s mother, according to the US Treasury Department – was detained. It takes place in the port of Hamburg in Germany.
In Fiji, meanwhile, police are reportedly investigating a superyacht suspected of being owned by Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, which is moored in the Pacific island nation this week.
Dilbar, the yacht confiscated in Germany, is registered in the Cayman Islands, according to the Ministry of Finance, and costs between $ 600 million and $ 735 million, with an estimated annual operating cost of $ 60 million. At 15,917 tonnes, it is the world’s largest yacht in terms of internal volume, according to the ship’s manufacturer, Lürssen, which advertises its “classic profile with a light ivory hull and bronze accents”.
It is known that Usmanov is close [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, as well as Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s deputy chairman of the Security Council and former president and prime minister of Russia, said the finance ministry, saying his ties to the Kremlin “enriched him and allowed him a luxurious life”.
In the early days of the invasion, President Biden warned Russian oligarchs: “We are joining our European allies to find and confiscate your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets.
The US hunt for huge fortunes of Russian oligarchs faces barriers at sea
The United States said on March 3rd that it had sanctioned Usmanov, claiming he was among the “key elites” allowing Putin to wage war on Ukraine. Experts from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said in a fact-finding report released on Wednesday that Russia had violated international humanitarian law by deliberately attacking civilians during its invasion of Ukraine. The United States and other nations have accused Russia of committing war crimes there, and Biden said on Tuesday that Putin was committing “genocide” in Ukraine.
Usmanov, 68, is the 86th richest man in the world with an estimated fortune of $ 19.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He has “huge stakes in many sectors” of the Russian economy and internationally, the finance ministry said, including a 49 percent stake in USM, a holding company that controls Russia’s largest iron ore producer, according to Bloomberg.
A representative of Usmanov was not immediately available and USM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the case of Fiji, an employee of the National Police Command and Control Center told Reuters that the captain of the ship, which arrived on Tuesday, was asked how he got to Fiji without customs clearance.
Kerimov has been sanctioned by the United States, Britain and the European Union, but questions remain about the ownership of the luxury vessel. Police have confiscated a superyacht called the Amadea, a 348-foot ship worth $ 325 million, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The US Embassy in Suva told the Fiji Times that it was “cooperating with the Fijian authorities on the issue” and was committed to “discovering and seizing the assets of the oligarchs who supported the brutal, unprovoked war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine.”
Adela Suliman of London contributed to this report.
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