Investigators searched a yacht in the port of Hamburg as part of a case against a Russian oligarch who is said to have violated the Foreign Trade Act.
It is the luxury yacht “Luna”, which is attributed to 67-year-old Farkhad Akhmedov, who is on an EU sanctions list. The suspicion against him is that he has not reported assets in Germany.
Navy experts were brought in to find possible secret hiding places on board. The yacht was arrested by the authorities in spring 2022.
More than 30 investigators from the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Hamburg State Criminal Police Office searched a suspected oligarch yacht in the port of the Hanseatic city on Wednesday. The investigation is directed “against an entrepreneur from the Russian Federation on suspicion of violating the Foreign Trade Act,” said the Attorney General and the BKA. The Federal Police and experts from the Navy were also involved in the operation.
According to information from the German Press Agency, it is the luxury yacht “Luna”, which the BKA assigns to the Russian businessman Farkhad Akhmedov. The 67-year-old has been on a list of people subject to EU sanctions for the Russian attack on Ukraine for a year.
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The public prosecutor’s office in Frankfurt did not want to comment on the identity of the accused. The 67-year-old is suspected of having, after inclusion in the EU sanctions list, mandatory disclosure of assets towards the German
Bundesbank and the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control,” it said. He is said to have not reported “significant assets” to the authorities in Germany.
The operation is still ongoing as of Wednesday afternoon
A spokesman for the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office said the yacht was being searched for expensive art or other items of high value. According to the information, the operation was still ongoing in the afternoon, so that no information could yet be given about any items that might have been secured.
The procedure is being conducted by the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office because it had been brought to them by the Federal Criminal Police Office, the spokesman said. Navy experts were also involved in the operation in Hamburg. Their special knowledge is required to find possible secret hiding places on board the 115-meter-long luxury yacht, it said.
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The “Luna” had already been arrested by the authorities in Hamburg in the spring of last year. The yacht is in the shipyard of the Hamburg shipbuilder Blohm+Voss, which belongs to the Lürssen Group. A spokesman did not want to comment “on sanctions and corresponding official measures regarding the ships lying with us”. “Of course we work closely with the responsible authorities and follow all sanctions regulations,” he said simply.