Ukraine war
Spanish police seize mega-yacht Crescent $600m again
135 meters of luxury: The “Crescent” is said to belong to Igor Ivanovich Sechin and was therefore recently confiscated in Spain.
© Luerssen / PR
The next oligarch yacht is no longer on the open sea: the Spanish police arrested a 135-meter ship in the port of Tarragona. It is said to belong to Rosneft boss Igor Ivanovich Sechin and would therefore be affected by EU sanctions.
This confiscation announced itself: After the “Scheherazade” in the Italian port of Carrara was checked for a connection to Russia’s President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and was not allowed to leave the dry dock for the time being, the sister ship “Crescent” (IMO 9785108) in Tarragona, Spain, a similar fate.
According to the authorities, the $600 million yacht belongs to Rosneft boss Igor Ivanovich Sechin and would therefore be subject to sanctions. After the confiscation of the “Scheherazade”, people in the social networks reported that the “Crescent” was in the Spanish port and asked the authorities to take a closer look at the yacht.
In Spain since November 2021
Officially, the Crescent is owned by a shell company in the Cayman Islands called Densiarly Ents, which is part of the Trident Trust asset management company. This is not unusual when registering mega yachts, as very few ships belong directly to the actual owners.
Reuters reports that the “Crescent” has been in the port of Tarragona since November 2021. As late as March 4, the crew had obtained Coast Guard permission to leave port, but for unknown reasons did not go ahead with their plans.
Spanish transport authorities confirmed the seizure of the yacht but did not release information about the Crescent’s owner, which has remained a mystery to this day. So far nobody knew who really owns the gigantic ship. Reuters claims to have learned from Spanish police circles for the first time that it is a Sechin yacht.
The hunt for yachts continues
The “Crescent” is one of many yachts that have been confiscated in recent weeks. Sechin’s second yacht, the “Amore Vero”, hit France in early March. Italy is currently holding Andrei Melnichenko’s “SY A”. In addition to “Crescent”, Spain is currently also examining “Lady Anastasia” by Alexander Mikheev and “Valerie” by Sergei Viktorovich Chemesov.
Where the ships are located is not a secret, much to the chagrin of the owners. The whereabouts data is publicly available thanks to the IMO number and since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine there have been many projects keeping a close eye on where the oligarchs’ treasures are currently located. This applies to private jets, houses and also yachts. Activists recently published the website “Sanctionsahoy.com“, on which a world map shows the exact positions of the ships. There are also corresponding Twitter bots, including one for Ships and one for private planes.
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