this is superyacht news with eSysman
hi welcome back to the channel okay so somebody sent me these photos from yesterday
of the motoryacht Vava 2 off Portofino at anchor or is it? - this is Portofino- this is one
of the most beautiful locations in Italy and perhaps in the world now as you can see here
these are the AIS signatures of all the yachts at anchor in Portofino and a couple docks as well now
as you zoom in closer on AIS here the sizes of the vessels start to show and this is based on data
received from the vessels they're broadcasting this data and the size of the vessel is one of the
items of data that is manually entered into the system so see which one is the largest here well
by the look of it it's this one right or maybe this one or this one but in actual fact it's this
one so despite saying just eight meters the vessel is actually 97 meters long is that a mistake
well it's unlikely as this vessel is broadcasting the name Romulus but it's actually named Vava 2 at
least the signs on the yacht say Vava 2 so as far as we know the yacht is owned by Swiss billionaire
Ernesto Bertorelli who sold his pharmaceutical business in 2007 for 13 billion dollars
but as of 2021 his family's fortune is believed to be more like 28 billion dollars
he commissioned this yacht from davenport yacht in the UK and they're now named pen
Dennis shipyard now at the time of the launch of this vessel it was believed to be the largest
super yacht ever built in the UK as far as i know it still is so if we type the name Vava 2 into AIS
we get Vava 2 right and according to AIS she's off the coast of Cuba however if you look closer
look at the date it was actually last broadcast it's over 3 years ago so it appears they
simply switched off to AIS and never switched it back on again but why are they broadcasting
the name Romulus when the vessel still has the name Vava2 on it and why does it say it's only
8 meters long -also if we look at Romulus the last time it broadcast any data was 16 hours ago
so it appears they're switching off the AIS whenever they're at anchor
there's some funny business going on here isn't it they're not simply just um switching off
the AIS like a lot of the boats have been doing over the last four months
the vessel's actually been it would appear the vessel's actually been renamed Romulus but they
haven't changed the name plates on the vessel now the reason why i say this is because if you
type in the mmsi number which is a unique number given to the yacht for communication purposes or
the call sign which is also given by the flag state to the yacht- if you type those numbers
into any AIS system like marine traffic or vessel finder it comes up with the name Romulus right so
it is registered to the name Romulus why are they doing this did the yacht get sold
i mean i can't find any records of the yacht being sold as far as i know it's still owned
by the same owner why would you keep the old name on the vessel and broadcast the new name
very strange it's kind of like hiding in plain sight right everyone thinks it's called Vava 2
it's called Romulus it says it's 8 meters it's 97 meters but what purpose does this serve
the main thing i can see is that for people like me looking at it from a computer you're looking
at a different boat right that's the only thing i can think of because if you're in that location
you can clearly see the boat you can clearly see which boat it is you can you can do a search and
find out who the owner is now it is possible that owner has changed and it's just not being recorded
but anyway stay tuned and we'll go further on this one in a future video.
okay in 2021 an article in Boat International magazines said that a 63 meter yacht called
force blue had been sold at auction the vessel that was once valued at 68 million dollars was
listed for sale according to boat international for seven million dollars what they neglected
to say in the article is the vessel was being sold because it had been confiscated from the
previous owner Flavio Buriatore because of tax evasion he was convicted he was he was accused
of tax evasion in 2010 and the case went on for 12 years and six court cases and eventually in 2021
the vessel was sold at auction so what they also failed to mention in this article is the new owner
is Bernie Ecclestone if you're an older person and a formula one fan you'll recognize these names
because Flavio Briatore and Bernie Ecclestone go back to the 1980s they've been friends for a
long time they were both in formula 1 together Bernie Ecclestone was was running the whole deal
and Flavio Briatore was part of the Benetton formula one racing team now we fast forward to
2022 a Boat International just put out another article saying that the 63 meter or 206 foot
force blue is now 229 feet or 70 meters long thanks to a stern extension and a full refit now
with it being a new owner we will assume right that the new owner paid for this work so betty
Eccleston buys his yacht for 7M$ million dollars puts it through a big refit has a stern extension
made on it and then both international says hey look it's just come out of refill
however this month in the supreme court in Italy they've overruled the appeal court of Genoa who
confiscated Mr Briatoria's yacht they're going to have another court case so that will be the
7th court case in 12 years because of this tax evasion charge and also it should be noted
that the original charge of tax evasion has now expired i think the statute of limitations
i think they call it in the U.S. that's now expired now the goal of the trial will be
to ascertain if the original confiscation was fair so in theory if they overturn the original
sentence does that mean Flavio gets his yacht back i mean what if Bernie Ecclestone hadn't bought it
how would that work maybe the court will have to compensate Mr Brietori with it with cash
for the loss of his vessel which is now with his his friend right so yeah so it's kind of
lucky that Bernie Ecclestone bought it right so on instagram Flavio Briatore posted this after
the the news came out he said in may 2010 they "Guardia di Finanza" financial police seized my
boat and the news was spread in the media around the world that it was a tax evader
today after 12 years and 6th tests, it means trials my innocence has finally been proven
a real test that fortunately ended that's what Fabio Brietorei says his innocence has been proven
well, we'll wait and see it but in the 1980s he was convicted of fraud of of
constructing these fake card games and robbing billion millionaires of lots of money and he
was given 2 prison sentences and he fled from Italy and he he lived as a fugitive in St Thomas
and the Virgin Islands for years until the court in Italy the or the EU court overturned his
sentence and the for some sort of amnesty and then in 2010 the court in in Italy said that he was
rehabilitated in 2010 that's the same year he was charged with tax evasion on this yacht
yeah i'll let you make your mind off about this anyway that's an interesting
story isn't it so anyway uh i'm going to leave it there let me know what you think of these stories
the first one the other 2 story very strange story you've got any information about that
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