Crew of 'Putin's Yacht" abandon ship

 Ed Morrissey:

Your feel-good story of the day comes from Tuscany, or at least I think it’s a feel-good story. No one knows for sure that Vladimir Putin owns the yacht Scheherazade, but no one else has identified themselves as its owner despite its $700 million value. We do know that its Russian crew has suddenly disappeared from the town after more than a year of supervising the craft....

...

As the New York Times reports, Italian investigators have been working for weeks to find out who owns the Scheherazade, but apparently still haven’t reached any conclusions. Its trail leads through multiple shell companies in a clear attempt to obfuscate the ownership of the yacht, although Italy has had more success in seizing equivalent assets from other Russian oligarchs. The complexity of the title’s cover suggests that the ownership is particularly well positioned and also has a greater need to hide the paper trail of the ship. Hence, it’s likely Putin himself or someone so close to him that he’s strategically almost as important … and it’s tough to see who else Putin would go to that much trouble to help hide.

The Russians have been replaced by another crew, the NYT reports, this one British. If the previous crew was FSB, perhaps the new crew might be MI-6, at least in part. If the vessel does indeed belong to Putin, it might have some very sensitive intel and communications systems on board that would interest Western agencies.

...

I have not seen too many stories about Putin going yachting recently.  But if I was a Russian leader and had such a ship, I think I would keep it ported in the Black Sea for weekend cruises.  

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