The luxury yacht “Valerie” has a value of 135 million euros and may belong to Rostec boss Sergey Chemezov. Due to sanctions, he is on the radar of the Spanish authorities – and with him his yacht.
For the first time, Spanish authorities have arrested a yacht that may belong to a Russian oligarch affected by EU sanctions, the newspaper El País and other Spanish media reported.
It is being checked whether the luxury yacht “Valerie” in the port of Barcelona, whose value was given at 135 million euros, actually belongs to the head of the Russian state-owned armaments company Rostec, Sergey Chemezov, the newspaper wrote, citing the General Directorate of the Spanish Merchant Navy.
Old acquaintance of Putin
Chemezov is on the EU sanctions list because of the Russian attack on Ukraine. He is an old acquaintance of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Both once served together with the Soviet secret service KGB in Dresden.
A letterbox company is registered as the owner of the 85-meter-long “Valerie” flying the flag of the small Caribbean state of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The newspaper wrote that the ship, which was built in 2011 by the Lürssen shipyard in Bremen, may actually belong to Tschemesov, is evident from the Pandora Papers published last year.
According to research by an international network of journalists, to which “El País” also belonged, there is a complicated network of companies in tax havens between the oligarch and the ship. In this context, the Spanish authorities had pointed out the great difficulty in establishing the ownership situation beyond any doubt.
Source: Stern
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