A #YachtWatch Update: A sanctioned Russian yacht is available for charter
Plus: Surprise! Not every Russian has a yacht, and that presents an opportunity
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This month, Mother Jones takes a look at the rise of the American oligarchy, including a quote from yours truly. I haven’t had a chance to read all the articles yet, but they certainly fit into many of the themes we discuss here in this subsquat (as my husband calls substack).
ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT
Last week, I wrote about the possible sale of the yacht Amadea. But if buying a sanctioned Russian yacht is too much for your pocketbook, you’re in luck, because a different sanctioned Russian mega yacht is available for charter.
Flying Fox, a 450-foot, six-deck yacht worth an estimated $400 million, can be chartered through the Dubai office of Bluewater, a yacht management company based in Monaco.
The US Treasury sanctioned the Flying Fox in June 2022. It was one of the rare Russian assets to be put on the sanctions list without its owner (or presumed owner) also being sanctioned. The yacht is owned by Dmitry Kamenshchik, owner of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport who remains free of sanctions (other than Ukrainian ones).
Treasury sanctioned Flying Fox because it was the largest yacht available for charter (at the time) through Imperial Yachts, a shady yacht management company based in Monaco that is also sanctioned and that has been identified in court documents, along with its CEO Evgeny Kochman, for its role in laundering money using yachts (allegedly). For more on Imperial Yachts, see this New York Times article and for some background on Kochman see this previous post:
As Treasury noted, it designated Imperial Yachts because the company’s yacht charters generated income for the yachts’ owners (i.e. Russia’s oligarchs) and Treasury dinged Flying Fox specifically because it was the largest yacht available for charter through the company.
Kamenshchik seems to have found a workaround, because Flying Fox is once again available for charter, just through a different company: Bluewater Yachting Dubai.
Does this solve the problem of Flying Fox being sanctioned? Now that it is not managed by Imperial Yachts, is Flying Fox a free agent? I sent a query to Treasury but have not received a response.
It might be that simple, although there is an intriguing story about Flying Fox from early in the yacht-seizing frenzy. In early 2022, the Dominican Republic seized Flying Fox at the behest of the US government and investigated it for money laundering and arms trafficking. But in April 2022, the country let the yacht go. I have seen no follow-up reporting on the incident, and again, Treasury did not respond to my questions about it.
Is Imperial Yachts dumping Russian yachts on other management companies? Why is Flying Fox still sanctioned if it is no longer managed by Imperial Yachts? Is Imperial Yachts still operating? If anyone would like to sponsor an investigative trip to Monaco for me to find out, let me know!
Chartering Flying Fox Is For Normal People Just Like Us
I was unable to find out how much it costs to charter Flying Fox from its new management company, Bluewater. After all, US citizens cannot charter it, since it is still sanctioned. However, in 2020 it cost $4 million a week. I know that sounds like a lot, but the yacht can host 25 guests, so that’s only $160,000 a week per guest, which is totally doable. Or, if you’re Beyonce and Jay-Z, you can rent the whole thing just for yourself.
The yacht has two helipads that convert to dance floors, a personal submersible, a two-story spa, a giant swimming pool that can be walled in half to accommodate freshwater on one side and saltwater on the other, and the first cryotherapy sauna ever built on a yacht. (For those who are not regular cryotherapy sauna users: what the fuck is wrong with you? It’s a sauna that allows you to immerse yourself in nitrogen vapors at -180 degrees Celsius, duh.) Here’s a video that shows you everything we are missing by not chartering this thing:
About Those Yachts: Turns Out, Not Every Russian Has One
And a lot of Russians are kind of pissed Putin’s oligarchs do.
CIA has decided to exploit that grudge, highlighting Russia’s enormous wealth inequality in its latest video targeted at recruiting ordinary Russians.
“Why I contacted CIA: the motherland” is the name of the Agency’s latest video to drop on Telegram and other networking sites and aimed at getting Russians to turn over information to the US. In it, a 35-year-old man contemplates his father’s legacy, the meaning of patriotism, and the “betrayal” of Russia by Putin and other kleptocratic elites.
“Our leaders sell out the country for palaces and yachts while our soldiers chew rotten potatoes and fire ancient weapons,” says the narrator. “Our people are forced to give bribes just to find a job. But the elites in incredibly expensive watches while away the time as the corruption and nepotism eat my country alive from the inside.”
The video ends with the man deciding to contact CIA through its secure portal. This is the third such video the Agency has released in the last year that plays on Russians’ sense of betrayal in the hopes of getting them to help the West.
A CIA spokesperson told NBC News, “We are seeing more outreach from Russians as a result of these videos. If it weren’t working, we wouldn’t be on video number three.”
For its part, the Kremlin mocked the video. Then again, they must be worried about traitors in their midst, given how many people they’ve been throwing in prison for exactly that. The number of treason cases has skyrocketed in Russia since the latest phase of the war began in 2022. According to Yevgeny Smirnov, a lawyer for the legal NGO First Department:
“I believe that more than 100 treason cases have been filed this year and their number continues to grow. The ‘threshold of sensitivity’ for the security services is rapidly decreasing and the distribution of news about Ukraine, the transfer of several hundred roubles, or the desire to leave the country began to be recognized as treason. Provocations deserve special attention, because this is a signal that the FSB is [fulfilling quotas] – [the number of] people sent to camps for treason.”
Sounds like a terrible, anxiety-ridden day-to-day existence. CIA is offering Russians a secure way to reach out and maybe even get out. Happy hunting, my friends.
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of stories you should be reading
EUROPE
Brussels proposes tightening control over foreign investments made through subsidiaries in Europe (El Pais English)
UNITED STATES
Wall Street’s bargain with Trump (FT)
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
Would be amused if this is what E Jean Carroll chooses to do with her $83M