Emmanuel Thomas, DPA, Friday, May 12, 2023
HAMBURG – German officials seized assets from a yacht anchored in Hamburg that is linked to a Russian oligarch suspected of circumventing sanctions imposed in relation to the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine.
The raid was carried out by officials acting for the Frankfurt Prosecutor General’s Office and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) in the port of Hamburg on Thursday, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said on Friday.
They seized an art collection and other art objects said to be worth several million dollars, according to a report by German magazine Der Spiegel.
After an initial search of the ship on May 3, the Prosecutor General’s Office and the BKA had announced that “an entrepreneur from the Russian Federation was being investigated on suspicion of violating the Foreign Trade and Payments Act.”
They said the vessel had been searched specifically for expensive art or other items of high value. The boat in question is the Luna, a luxury yacht, according to dpa. The BKA says Russian businessman Farkhad Akhmedov owns the boat.
He is among those subject to sanctions imposed by the EU in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The businessman is suspected of having “violated criminal asset declaration obligations to the German Bundesbank and the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control after being placed on the EU sanctions list,” the statement says.
He allegedly failed to report “substantial assets” in Germany to the authorities.
The seized items could now be evidence or possibly confiscated by a court.
Thursday’s action was legally a continuation of the May 3 search, according to officials.
The German authorities detained the Luna last spring. The 115-meter boat was last in the shipyard harbour run by Hamburg shipbuilder Blohm+Voss, which is part of the Lürssen Group.
