A 459-Foot Mystery in a Tuscan Port: Is It a Russian’s Superyacht?
As European authorities go after the luxury assets of oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin, a superyacht cloaked in secrecy has come under investigation.
From Germany’s North Sea ports to the French Riviera, open season has been declared on superyachts. Across Europe, authorities are hunting down luxury vessels tied to Russian oligarchs in the effort to inflict pain on President Vladimir V. Putin’s allies.
In Marina di Carrara, a small Italian town on the Tuscan coast, one of the world’s biggest, newest and most expensive superyachts — called the Scheherazade — is under scrutiny by the Italian police. Almost as long as a U.S. guided-missile destroyer, it dominates the waterfront.
Correction:
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the new task force announced by President Biden in his State of the Union address. He announced a Justice Department task force to pursue and seize the assets of oligarchs associated with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, not a joint task force with partners in Europe, which was previously announced.
Michael Forsythe is a reporter on the investigations team. He was previously a correspondent in Hong Kong, covering the intersection of money and politics in China. He has also worked at Bloomberg News and is a United States Navy veteran. @PekingMike
Gaia Pianigiani is a reporter based in Italy for The New York Times. @gaia_pianigiani
David D. Kirkpatrick is an investigative reporter based in New York and the author of “Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and the Middle East.“ In 2020 he shared a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on covert Russian interference in other governments and as the Cairo bureau chief from 2011 to 2015 he led coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings.
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