And you say there is no such thing as magic. Dmitry Mazepin, one of the many Russian oligarchs sanctioned worldwide after the war in Ukraine, has been able to successfully disappear a 72-foot luxury yacht out of Sardinia, Italy. Poof!
Dmitry Mazepin is not just the major shareholder and chairman of Uralchem, but also the father and financier of former F1 driver Nikita Mazepin. Both Mazepin father and son have been hit hard by the current sanctions against Russian oligarchs, implemented by many countries after Russia invaded Ukraine: the father has had several assets frozen, while the son was kicked out of the Haas F1 team – a decision he’s still struggling with.
If there’s a sliver of hope on the horizon for the Mazepins, it’s a yacht-shaped one: The Guardian recently reported that Mazepin Sr. had been able to successfully disappear a yacht that had been frozen in Sardinia, Italy, since March. Call this the world’s biggest coincidence, but it simply “vanished” just as authorities were about to establish that Mazepin was the direct beneficiary, and proceed to impound it.
This is only the tip of the iceberg of this strange story, as superyacht vlogger eSysman points out in the video below, time-stamped at the 3.25-minute mark. The yacht in question is a 72-foot (22-meter) vessel called Aldabra, which had been docked in Sardinia for months before the sanctions. It was frozen by Italian authorities when Mazepin was included on the sanctions lists, and it stayed put until this summer, when, one bright day, it simply sailed off.
“Mazepin knew he was on the list, but managed to make the most of the period during which we were working to establish that the boat belonged to him, as we had to investigate the chain of ownership,” the Guardia di Finanza tells the media outlet. “We were in the process of confirming the ownership when it was taken away.”
Apparently, with the vessel frozen and him barred from using it, Mazepin had to get creative with his plan: he hired a foreign company to manage Aldabra, and then the company hired a local captain for the new crew. The vessel sailed away “just hours” before police confirmed its ownership. With the confirmation would have come seizure, and Mazepin would have lost the asset indefinitely.
They say coincidences don’t exist, and the police believe this to be true. “This yacht had never even left Sardinia before,” one source says for the same publication. “So you can see an attitude that was evidently aimed at subtracting it from the rules.”
The management firm and the Italian captain are now facing fines of €500,000 ($527,200 at the current exchange rate) each for illegally taking the vessel out of Italy. For their part, they claim they had no idea that it belonged to a sanctioned individual, so they knew nothing of the illegality of its departure. See no evil, and all that.
According to eSysman, the story is even stranger, because there is virtually no trace of Mazepin’s yacht in any of the trade registries. It doesn’t have a registration number in the IMO (International Maritime Organization) database and it doesn’t appear on any other of the publicly-available marine tracking websites. The former could be because it’s under 100 GT in volume, which means IMO registration is not mandatory, and the latter could be explained by the fact that it has had its AIS (automatic identification system) tracking turned off since it sailed away. For all intents and purposes, the Aldabra is a ghost ship or, at the very least, the modern, Russian oligarch-flavored version of one.
The strangest part, though, is that there doesn’t seem to be any trace of the boat elsewhere, either; there isn’t as much as a photo of it available online. The Guardian estimates that it’s valued at €1 million tops ($1 million), so it’s certainly small and cheap enough (*by Russian oligarch standards) to fly under the radar. Still, some digging around would still uncover details on the build, the shipyard, and its previous travel routes, if any. In this case, all digging around comes up empty.
Police are now trying to track down the Aldabra, but they’re probably not holding their breath on it, all things considered. Since sanctions went into effect earlier this year, if there’s one thing we, the public and authorities from all over the world, have learned is that, if there’s a luxury asset that has to be stowed away from the proverbial long arm of the law, it shall be done.
If there’s a sliver of hope on the horizon for the Mazepins, it’s a yacht-shaped one: The Guardian recently reported that Mazepin Sr. had been able to successfully disappear a yacht that had been frozen in Sardinia, Italy, since March. Call this the world’s biggest coincidence, but it simply “vanished” just as authorities were about to establish that Mazepin was the direct beneficiary, and proceed to impound it.
This is only the tip of the iceberg of this strange story, as superyacht vlogger eSysman points out in the video below, time-stamped at the 3.25-minute mark. The yacht in question is a 72-foot (22-meter) vessel called Aldabra, which had been docked in Sardinia for months before the sanctions. It was frozen by Italian authorities when Mazepin was included on the sanctions lists, and it stayed put until this summer, when, one bright day, it simply sailed off.
Apparently, with the vessel frozen and him barred from using it, Mazepin had to get creative with his plan: he hired a foreign company to manage Aldabra, and then the company hired a local captain for the new crew. The vessel sailed away “just hours” before police confirmed its ownership. With the confirmation would have come seizure, and Mazepin would have lost the asset indefinitely.
They say coincidences don’t exist, and the police believe this to be true. “This yacht had never even left Sardinia before,” one source says for the same publication. “So you can see an attitude that was evidently aimed at subtracting it from the rules.”
The management firm and the Italian captain are now facing fines of €500,000 ($527,200 at the current exchange rate) each for illegally taking the vessel out of Italy. For their part, they claim they had no idea that it belonged to a sanctioned individual, so they knew nothing of the illegality of its departure. See no evil, and all that.
According to eSysman, the story is even stranger, because there is virtually no trace of Mazepin’s yacht in any of the trade registries. It doesn’t have a registration number in the IMO (International Maritime Organization) database and it doesn’t appear on any other of the publicly-available marine tracking websites. The former could be because it’s under 100 GT in volume, which means IMO registration is not mandatory, and the latter could be explained by the fact that it has had its AIS (automatic identification system) tracking turned off since it sailed away. For all intents and purposes, the Aldabra is a ghost ship or, at the very least, the modern, Russian oligarch-flavored version of one.
Police are now trying to track down the Aldabra, but they’re probably not holding their breath on it, all things considered. Since sanctions went into effect earlier this year, if there’s one thing we, the public and authorities from all over the world, have learned is that, if there’s a luxury asset that has to be stowed away from the proverbial long arm of the law, it shall be done.