well good morning welcome back to the channel - welcome to an early morning in
London this is a "motor yacht Phi" behind me here this is a brand new superyacht that was launched
in 2021 - 58 meters about 500 gross tons it's a small super yacht which sounds funny i know
especially new viewers that come and see this thing and they say well that's small
but in comparison to many of the vessels featured on my channel this is a small super yacht the
reason why we're here today is because this vessel has been here since the end of March and
it's been arrested by the UK government and it's been here ever since and the transport minister
Grant Shapps arrested had this vessel arrested they dentist they said they identified that it
was Russian owned on the 12th of March it was arrested on i think the 28th of the 29th of march
the difference between this vessel and every other vessel that we've covered
on the channel is that this vessel is owned by somebody who is not under any sanctions by the UK
or by the EU or by the US as far as i can fi as i could find i definitely know he's not
under sanctions by the UK and as far as i can tell nobody else has sanctioned this
this gentleman and yet his vessel has been seized seized so it's been arrested here because - it's
not gone through forfeiture the UK government does not own this vessel it's been arrested detained
prevented from leaving where we are right now in Canary Wharf in London.
To get out of the out of this area there's a road bridge that has to be
raised so the vessel can't leave without that road bridge without it being raised so apparently
on the day of the schedule departure of the vessel the road bridge was broken and they couldn't open
the bridge the following day which was the that was a Tuesday the following day on the Wednesday
the vessel was arrested and then on the Thursday they were told the bridge had been repaired so
you can make your own mind up about whether or not that bridge was ever actually not functioning
said the individual was not currently on the sanctions list but he had close connections to
Russian president Vladimir Putin the captain of the yacht Guy Booth called the arrest a public
what the NCA the national crime agency and Grand Shaps from the department of transport says
is that the vessel was deliberately "well hidden" so the vessel was owned by a company based in
Saint Kitts and yet the vessel is flagged in Malta which to them is enough for an arrest
i know a lot of people won't like this but many vessels are registered with companies in islands
in the Caribbean or in the Marshall islands and then registered the flag state might be in the
Marshall islands or it could be somewhere else like Malta or the cayman islands if i was to
bring this here to London to have work done on it then and i've registered it in London or in the UK
then when i finish the work let's say i spend a few million pounds on it then i'm liable to pay
tax on that money if i register this in the Cayman Islands then as long as i leave London within 60
days of the work being completed i'm not liable to pay tax on that vessel and that's the reason
why most vessels are registered out of Europe because most of the reefer work is done in Europe
right so i don't have to pay tax and that's the reason why a vessel is registered in one place
and then and owned by somebody from another place now that doesn't mean he's a criminal
it means or or it's it means the vessel was hidden to prevent the British government from finding out
it's owned by Russian that's not the same thing so
should the vessel be arrested and and should he be prevented from using his vessel
the flag of convenience which is what it's often called when people register a vessel in a country
that they're not from that's that's a debate that should be had whether that should be allowed
but that's not a reason for this vessel to be arrested because there are many vessels
many vessels the cayman islands is one of the biggest yacht registries in the world i think
it might be the biggest yacht registry in the world many of those vessels are registered for
the same reasons so should this vessel be stuck here in London i'd be interested to know what
you're thinking about the arrest you think it's justified to arrest a vessel because the vessel is
simply owned by Russian there are plenty of Russians who are against the war in Ukraine quite
a number of them are quite outspoken about the war now Abramovic has been trying to uh broker peace
deals so as a Farquhar Akhmadov they've both been to Turkey to try and broker peace deals there are
other people that have spoken out about it Dmitry Robelov the owner of motor yacht Ana has donated
money to help the people the victims of the war in Ukraine so there are people who are against what's
happening- i'd be interested to know what you think put your comments below and let's get into
that discussion all right i'm gonna wrap this up here - thanks very much for watching i hope you've
enjoyed this video - be sure to like the video and subscribe if you haven't already and hit the
little bell so you get all the notifications of future videos alright guys take it easy bye
Thank