The mystery of the £500m superyacht ‘owned by Vladimir Putin’

A small Italian town on the Tuscan coast is the epicentre of an investigation to discover the owner of one of the world’s biggest and most expensive superyachts.

The Guardian said the “mysterious 140-metre-long, six-floor” vessel, called the Scheherazade, is facing scrutiny from the Italian police and locals in Tuscany’s port of Marina di Carrara.

Activists working with jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny are convinced that the yacht, which is worth $700m (£528m), is owned by Vladimir Putin.

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Researchers said that almost half of the Russian crew members that had been traced were employed by Russia’s Federal Security Service, which handles security for high-ranking officials including the president.

“They are Russian state employees, military personnel, and they regularly travel to Italy as a group to work on the mysterious yacht,” investigative journalist Maria Pevchikh wrote on Twitter.

However, the ship’s captain, Guy Bennett-Pearce, a British national, denied that Putin owned the yacht or had even set foot on it. “I have never seen him. I have never met him,” Bennett-Pearce told The New York Times, adding that its owner was not on any sanctions list.

The paper said that even by the standards of the “hyper-confidential world of superyachting”, there was an “unusual degree of secrecy” surrounding the Scheherazade.

Contractors and crew members have signed non-disclosure agreements, and the ship has a cover to hide its name plate. A tall metal barrier has also been erected on the pier to partly obscure the yacht from onlookers.

The Sun said the “sickening luxury” allegedly enjoyed by Putin on board includes “countless swimming pools, a spa, a sauna, a theatre, ballrooms, a gym, and two helipads”. Bathrooms are “adorned with gold toilet-roll holders and taps”, and the vessel even has its own hospital.

“Personal touches for the despot” reportedly include a judo gym adorned with framed pictures of black belts, as well as “the biggest TV on a yacht”, measuring in at 4.5 metres, that cost a million euros to install.

Tory MP Tom Tugendhat told the paper that “Putin’s pampered nautical palace” was “launched with cash stolen off the Russian people and now floats off the Italian Riviera showing us all the action we should take”.

Speaking to the Italian parliament via video link yesterday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the authorities to seize the yacht. “Don’t be a resort for murderers,” he said. “Lock all their real estate, accounts and yachts – from the Scheherazade to the smallest ones.”