At least five boats owned by Russian billionaires were anchored or sailing today in the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation that has no extradition treaty with the United States, vessel tracking data showed.
The arrival of ships into the archipelago off the coast of Sri Lanka comes after Russia imposed severe Western sanctions on February 24 for its invasion of Ukraine.
Yacht Clio, owned by Oleg Deripaska, founder of US-sanctioned aluminum giant Rusal, docked in the capital Male today, according to the MarineTraffic database.
Titan arrived on February 28 by Alexander Abramov, co-founder of steelmaker Average.
Three other yachts belonging to Russian billionaires were seen sailing in Maldivian waters today, including the 88-metre Nirvana owned by Russia’s richest man Vladimir Potanin.
Most of the ships were last seen in Middle Eastern ports earlier this year.
A spokesman for the Maldivian government did not respond to a request for comment.
The United States has said it will take strict measures to seize assets from sanctioned Russians.
“Next week, we will launch a multilateral transatlantic task force to identify, hunt down and freeze the assets of sanctioned Russian companies and oligarchs – their boats, their mansions and any other wrongfully obtained profits that we may receive under the law. Can get under and freeze,” House said. Branca in a tweet last Sunday (27).
