Russian oligarch’s yacht disappears after being targeted by war sanctions

A luxury yacht worth R$5.5 million has disappeared from a port on the Italian island of Sardinia, local authorities announced this week. The ship belonged to Russian billionaire Dmitry Mazepin, who since March has been targeted by European Union sanctions for his links with President Vladimir Putin.

Dmitry is the owner of a mineral fertilizer company and the father of former Formula 1 driver Nikita Mazepin. The information was announced by the British newspaper The Guardian.

The Aldabra yacht had been moored and seized in the port of Olbia since March, when Mazepin was included in the list of oligarchs sanctioned for supporting Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The ship disappeared in June, hours before police confirmed the yacht was Mazepin’s, according to The Guardian.

“He knew Mazepin was on the list, but he was able to make the most of the time we worked to determine that the boat belonged to him, as we had to investigate the true owners,” said a source from the Sardinian financial police.

“We were in the approval process. [a propriedade] when you withdraw.”

According to the police investigation, Mazepin hired a foreign company that hired a Sardinian captain to take the yacht from Italy.

During the escape, the yacht stopped in Tunisia’s small port of Biserta, but its current whereabouts are unknown.

The company, which dismantled the boat and hired the captain, claims that they were unaware that the yacht belonged to Mazepin. Those involved can be fined €500,000.

This is the first case in Italy of a Russian who managed to evade European Union sanctions and whose assets were frozen.

“This yacht has never left Sardinia before,” a police officer told The Guardian. “So you can see an attitude aimed at pushing him outside the rules.”

Asset lock. In April, the Italian Ministry of Finance announced that a real estate complex in Portisco in the Sardinia region, owned by Russian oligarch Dmitry Arkadievich Mazepin and former Formula 1 driver Nikita Mazepin, was frozen for residential use. The estimated value of the site is €105 million (approximately R$540 million at the exchange rate at the time).

Officials say in a statement that Dmitry Mazepin is the owner of the Uralchem ​​chemical company, while Nikita is “a person connected with a businessman (his father) involved in economic sectors, which provides an important source of income for the government of the Russian Federation.” responsible for the annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of Ukraine”.

Uralchem ​​owns Uralkali as a subsidiary, Haas, a fertilizer company that is the main sponsor of the driver and the team he defends in Formula 1. The pilot and sponsorship contracts were terminated on March 5, amid reactions to the Russian army’s invasion of Ukraine.