A luxury superyacht linked to Russian president Vladimir Putin has been seized by Italian authorities after it was thought the crew were getting ready to sail into international waters.
The 450ft six-deck Scheherazade, which has two helicopter landing pads, a swimming pool and spa, is worth an estimated $700m (£530m). It had been undergoing repairs in the port of Marina di Carrara, Tuscany, since September.
Police boarded the yacht late on Friday to execute the order, the Italian government said.
Its finance ministry seized the Scheherazade under EU sanctions against Russia after investigations showed the owner had ties to “prominent elements of the Russian government”.
The action came as it was feared recent activity at the dockside suggested the crew might be preparing to sail the Scheherazade into international waters.
A source with direct knowledge of a weeks-long investigation into the vessel said police told Reuters the owner was Eduard Khudainatov, the former chief of Russian energy giant Rosneft who is not currently a target of EU sanctions.
The ministry said the owner himself was not on any sanctions lists drawn up by Brussels following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
However, it said Rome had asked Brussels to rectify this and had ordered the boat to be seized pending a decision.
Police have struggled to identify the real owner of the Scheherazade, which is registered in the Cayman Islands and was built by the German firm Luerssen.
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An organisation set up by the imprisoned Alexei Navalny, a fierce Putin critic, released a report in March saying it had evidence that the boat belonged to the Russian leader.
It said many of its crew were drawn from Russia’s Federal Protective Service (FSO), which is tasked with protecting the Russian president.
The Kremlin did not respond at the time to a request for comment on whether Putin was the owner.
In an address to the Italian parliament in March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had urged the government to impound the yacht as part of a Europe-wide effort to pressure Putin and his associates to halt the assault on Ukraine.
Italy sequestered villas and yachts worth over £811 million ($950 million) in March and April from wealthy Russians, who regularly came to the country on holiday and had bought property in many prestigious locations.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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