[imagesource: Auto Evolution]

Authorities have managed to get their hands on the biggest capture since the sanction list went into effect at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

A flurry of yet-to-be-sanctioned Russian oligarchs have been trying to squeeze their yachts into far-flung marinas or keeping them at sea for as long as possible so that the US, UK, and EU authorities don’t seize their assets.

The costs of keeping their superyachts from getting caught have been astronomical, to say the least, pointing to just how desperate they are to keep things afloat.

One $700 million megayacht, called the Scheherazade and believed to be owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, has just been found.

On paper, the owner of Scheherazade is non-sanctioned Russian billionaire Eduard Khudainatov, but he is likely just acting as a “straw owner” to hide the true owner of the superyacht – Putin.

Per Auto Evolution, it was arrested in Italy, at the Tuscan port of Marina di Carrara, where it had been docked for several months.

The conditions under which it was discovered are rather extreme.

Image: Auto Evolution

A former yachtie and current vlogger, eSysman SuperYachts, visited Marina Di Carrara to do a little digging and found that Scheherazade had two leading crews onboard.

The second crew were completely untrained with zero seafaring experience, which is odd considering how expensive and high-stakes the massive vessel is.

The 140-metre whopper is the 12th longest in the world.

Then again, when secrecy is the main goal…

It’s not uncommon for superyachts to use rotation for the majority of crew, he argues in a recent video [see below]. What is uncommon is for crews to switch all at once, which happened with Scheherazade – and more so to do it without a proper handover. Scheherazade has accommodation for 94 crew, so that would be one huge transition.

…The same source reveals that one crew was instructed to make videos in English of the most basic running and maintenance tasks, like lowering a tender or putting out the floaters. The insider says these videos would then be subtitled in Russian, and the second crew would use them as tutorials to run the ship.

Business Insider has more:

[eSysman Superyachts] added: “It also means that if you have to do a step-by-step procedure on a video of how to launch a tender, that means the person that’s watching it has never launched a tender.”

The other really revealing detail is that the initial permanent crew included 23 members of the FSO, or the Federal Protective Service, Putin’s Presidential security agency.

This was discovered in March this year after an investigation by journalists from Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).

FSO agents are supposed to be skilled in many things as they have to keep the president safe, but I bet you boating is not exactly a normal requirement:

“Why would you have Russian security service working on a boat owned by an oil tycoon?”

Dodgy, for sure.

The aforementioned video has more info:

[sources:autoevolution&businessinsider]