okay
security guys
prior to the implementation of sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine
this beautiful Italian port was home to a number of superyachts
owned by Russians who are now on those US EU and UK sanctions lists
this includes motor yacht universe allegedly owned by Dimitri Medvedev the former Russian president
a source close to the vessel once saying it was owned by a very high up Russian politician
this yacht left rather luckily one day before the early morning raids by Italian Guarda de Finanza,
the Italian Financial Police on another yacht in the marina universe fled to turkey
being one of the first to do so and seemingly set a trend for other Russian-owned boats to follow
other boats that call imperial home for most of the year are motor yacht Galaxy of Happiness owned by
God Nissanoff now sanctioned by the U.S. this yacht has been seemingly towed from the mediterranean
to Turkey in the last few days by a deep sea tug -another yacht the 72 meter or 236 foot
motor yacht Predator owned by Xander Makhmadov who was not currently on any sanctions lists
however his vessel which is almost always birthed here has not broadcast on AIS for almost 3 months
and their last known location despite saying roads in Greece
on marine traffic shows the vessel next to a swimming pool in a house in Corsica.
motor yacht Cleo the 72 meter or 238 foot, Lürssen allegedly owned by Oleg Derapaska who also usually
enjoys Imperia's coastline however at the time of the invasion of Ukraine she was in the Maldives
after a month she transited the Suez Canal to Turkey and headed to Russia via the Bosphorus
turning off her AIS as soon as she cleared the strait she has been seen on satellite coverage in
a marina near Sochi -most of the vessels left prior to a string of arrests by the Italian authorities
but this one motor yacht Lady M did not Lady M was arrested along with another
vessel motor yacht Lena in San Remo an hour down the coast Lady M is owned by
Alexi Mordejoff one of the richest men in Russia making much of his money from the steel industry
Mr Morgief though does not just own one yacht and in fact his other yacht is much larger
than this one and that vessel fled sanctions but to Vladivostok in Russia his other up being
m/y Nord i came to Imperia to find out what happened to "Lady M"
what do the sanctions mean for the shot what state is the yacht in and what happened to the crew.
I arrived in the marina on the evening of day one i immediately noticed a security vehicle parked
outside and feigned a phone call as i wasn't sure how they would react somebody filming
at this point i decided to use the drone from a safe distance
i think it's best if i fly the drone and keep my distance from security because i don't know
how they're going to react whether they're going to be upset with me trying to film
okay
security guards oh
I flew the drone back as quickly as possible taking a wide berth around the marina
even though i wasn't doing anything illegal
i didn't want to get caught and possibly have to delete the footage
as soon as i got the drone back i left the marina and headed out.
-just 60 seconds to tell you three reasons why you should be using Nord VPN number one security
if you frequently use public wi-fi such as at airports or coffee shops or at work you
should be using Nord VPN for increased security also if you live in the UK your service provider
must record all your internet usage for 12 months in case the government wants to look at it using
Nod VPN will make this impossible number two did you know that what you watch on netflix in the uk
is not necessarily what's available in other parts of the world one of my favorite TV shows is not
even available on netflix in the UK so i connect my VPN to the us and hey presto i'm watching
it number three don't be the product if you're thinking hey i've got a free VPN and it's just
as good you're wrong a free VPN will show adverts plus they will log your information and sell that
information to advertisers anyone offers anything for free and you have to ask yourself what's their
business model let's put it this way if you're not paying you're not the customer you're the
product Nod VPN does not log and this has been independently audited. Go to NordVPN/eSysman
to get the 2-year plan with an exclusive deal plus one month free risk-free with Nord VPN's
30-day money-back guarantee -okay back to the show- it's about 8 o'clock now just after 8 a.m and
and you can see the vessel next to Lady M there on the right you can see the crew the deck hands
up on deck there washing down first thing in the morning it's a daily daily ritual if you like and
if you look at Lady M nothing -you can't see it there's nobody no movement at all
and no ensign you can see that the ensign is flying on the vet on the other vessel - it's just
after 8 right now and yeah nothing on Lady M so security presence it's quite interesting you
can see the car down there when there's a few people there's a security team and think that
guard is handing over that's why there's a bit of movement down there but there's nothing going on
on Lady M you can see the crew there cleaning down on the vessel next to it there and
yeah absolutely no movements at all on Lady M Alexi Mordechaf was placed under the sanctions
because of the Ukraine invasion according to the EU Russia bank which Mordechev owns a financial
staking is the personal bank of the senior officials who benefited from the annexation
of Crimea; however he also has a 34-ish % stake in TUI one of the biggest holiday firms
in the world and during the pandemic he actually pumped money into the company keeping it afloat
and the day he was sanctioned he transferred the ownership of his assets in that company to his
wife and that transfer was being investigated by the german authorities but at the time they said
that it doesn't appear that he broke any rules as you can see from my footage here completely
deserted no ensign which is probably would get missed by most people and that's very telling
of a vessel because at 8 00 a.m the ensign goes up at 8 pm the ensign comes down and on
a vessel like this that would happen and it's not happening on this vessel which suggests to
me that there is a very there's either no crew at all or a very basic skeleton crew
now the vessel's broadcasting AIS so that means it has some power which obviously the
AIS unit is powered by a 24 volt DC but for that to be operating 2 months down the road
it it's obviously being charged those batteries are being charged so there's there's power on
board so there's probably an engineer and maybe somebody on deck just the very basic minimum crew
okay so i'm gonna just take a walk up by the boat just walk by i'm using my phone right now to film
the vessel looks in good order it look doesn't look like it's been washed for a while that's
another thing that tells me that there's no wash down on any yacht of this size normally the vessel
would be washed down every day and like i said there's there's no sign of life on the vessel
i've been here for 24 hours maybe a little bit longer and obviously i've not been stood outside
the boat for that long but i've been here long enough to to see that there's no sign of life on
board i've not seen one person on on the deck or any movements inside the vessel um so i i
suspect that there are like i said a minimal crew and they're probably just down in the crew area
actually now i've just seen somebody some movement there somebody on board not in uniform though
maybe he's one of the caretaker crew so that's the first movement i've seen in 24 hours
that's a different person so i've seen at least 2 people now
yeah you can see signs that the vessel has not been not had a wash down for quite a while
all right so after saying that i hadn't seen anybody on board any any workout on deck
there is one guy up on the master washing down so there are some crew on board but one crew member
washing a vessel of this size is that's a lot of work so that's probably why it doesn't
look as neat as it should because there's a like i said there's an absolute minimum crew
that's quite shocking news really about the crew so every member- every crew member's been laid off
and they've just hired a skeleton crew to look after it which is the obviously what i've just
observed well that's bad news and there's a this is not the only boat to be affected as well so
there's going to be a lot of other boats in the in the same situation
...