German police were reported to have raided superyacht Dilbar (IMO 9661792) on September 27th on suspicion of being base for money-laundering via the offshore companies of its alleged beneficial owner Alisher Usmanov (or his sister), the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office said. The search of the yacht followed last week’s raid of Usmanov’s properties on the shore of Lake Tegernsee in southern Bavaria.
Frankfurt said that Usmanov conducted several financial transactions between 2017 and 2022, using “an extensive and complex network of companies, mainly in so-called offshore states. There is a suspicion that the transferred sums of money originate from crimes, in particular from tax evasion. The operational measures also served to implement a request for legal assistance by the US Department of Justice.”
The yacht in Bremen, one of the largest superyachts in the world, was searched by 60 investigators. All of Usmanov’s assets in the EU should have been frozen on February 28th, when the EU announced sanctions in response to the February 24th invasion of Ukraine. However, it is alleged that Usmanov had spent years shuffling money around the world among various relatives, shell companies and trusts.
Usmanov’s sister, who is a gynaecologist in Tashkent, is listed as the beneficial owner of 27 Swiss bank accounts holding hundreds of millions of dollars, most of which are connected to her brother’s business empire.
The yacht had been detained since early March at the Blohm + Voss Yard in Hamburg, but left the port during the night of September 20th to head to Bremen.
2016-built, Cayman Islands-flagged, 15,917 gt Dilbar is owned by Navis Marine Ltd care of Lurssen Yacht Management GmbH of Bremen, Germany.