The Amore Vero, nearly 86 meters long, was undergoing maintenance in a shipyard in La Ciotat (Bouches-du-Rhône) and was preparing to sail without delay.

“French customs seized the yacht Amore Vero in La Ciotat, as part of the implementation of European Union sanctions against Russia,” said the French Ministry of Economy. and Finance in a statement.

This yacht is “owned by a company of which Igor Sechin, director of Rosneft, has been identified as the main shareholder”.

And it "came within the scope of the freezing measures decided against its owner" by the European Union, added the ministry.

Considered one of the leaders of the clan of "siloviki" - a word which designates senior officials from the security services - Mr. Setchin has been a faithful of the master of the Kremlin since the 1990s.

Press reports that could not yet be verified by AFP reported that another yacht, the Dilbar, considered the largest yacht in the world, owned by Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, was also seized by the German authorities in the port of Hamburg.

"The Amore Vero is immobilized in France", welcomed on Twitter the Minister of Public Accounts Olivier Dussopt, who is responsible for French Customs.

The boat was blocked overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, while "the ship was making arrangements to sail urgently, without having completed the planned work", he added.

The Amore vero, the 86-meter yacht from a company linked to a close friend of Vladimir Putin, seized by French customs at the La Ciotat shipyard in the south of France on March 3, 2022 NICOLAS TUCAT AFP

This luxurious yacht has a swimming pool on its main deck that can be transformed into a helipad and its interior was designed by renowned interior designer Alberto Pinto, according to its builder's website.

Its value would amount to 120 million dollars, according to a source wishing to remain anonymous.

Long and difficult checks

Symbols of the massive enrichment of senior Russian political and economic leaders, the yachts are among the assets they hold abroad targeted by Western sanctions.

Their interception is one of the first tangible signs of the application of these sanctions.

The mega-yacht Amore Vero belonging to a company linked to a close friend of Vladimir Putin, blocked in the La Ciotat shipyard on March 3, 2022 by French customs, in application of the sanctions taken in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine NICOLAS TUCAT AFP

The European sanctions target nearly 500 Russian personalities or entities, whose assets and economic resources must be gradually frozen, as European states manage to locate them and link them to their owners.

In La Ciotat, near Marseille, the French control operation thus took time, the customs having to verify the identity of the owner hiding behind the company which owned the ship, explains an official French source.

"There are a lot of echoes in the community about Russian yachts preparing to leave the Côte d'Azur", also told AFP a source familiar with the yachting community.

"The difficulty is that they are not under the Russian flag but under another flag, behind complicated arrangements via shell companies, so the job of customs is to see who is hiding behind it," confirms to AFP a source familiar with the yachting sector.

This is the third boat intercepted by France as part of the retaliatory measures taken after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

The Russian freighter Baltic Leader, on February 26, 2022, after its interception by French naval forces in the English Channel FRANCOIS LO PRESTI AFP

Last Saturday, the French authorities immobilized in the English Channel a merchant ship belonging according to Paris to the Russian bank PSB, the Baltic Leader, and on Sunday, it is a Russian freighter, the Victor Andryukhin, belonging to a Russian public leasing company , which was frozen in the port of Marseille-Fos.

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© 2022 AFP