Thread by @pevchikh

Have a look at this wonderful yacht called Scheherezade. It’s been talked about for a while. The rumour is it belongs to Vladimir Putin. But there is not much proof, only talks. And that's why it hasn’t been arrested yet. It just sits there in the port of Carrara (🇮🇹).

The yacht is owned by an anonymous offshore company from the Marshall Islands. No one has claimed it yet. So it’s actually the largest yacht in the world whose owner is unknown. Sounds like a job for us, right?

How do you prove that something belongs to Vladimir Putin, the most secretive and rich man on the planet? We've been investigating Putin’s corruption for over a decade. And there is one thing we know for sure. Putin never keeps assets under his own name.

So you need to look not at the ownership structure but rather at who manages and pays for it. That’s what we have done. Here is the crew list. A complete list of every employee onboard. From the captain to security deckhands.

One thing really stands out when you look at the list. It almost entirely consists of Russians. Russian passports are not the only thing they have in common. They also work for the FSO, The Federal Protective Service of the Russian Federation.

FSO is a militarised state agency responsible for the security and wellbeing of Vladimir Putin personally. They provide physical protection, acting as bodyguards, security officers etc. However their mandate is much wider.

For instance, FSO officers are also responsible for all Putin’s official residences. They build them, they protect them, they deal with Putin’s personal needs, procurement of food/goods, general maintenance. They are literally running Putin's life.

Look at this old video shot in front of Putin’s palace in its early stage of construction. Someone tried to walk in and take pictures but was arrested. If you pause the video to see who's guarding the palace, you'll notice the FSO patch on the sleeve.

Now back to Scheherezade yacht. Let’s go through the crew list. Number 2 on the list is Chief Officer Sergei Grishin. We’ve run his phone number through a special app and discovered that it’s saved in other people’s contact lists as “Sergei G FSO”.

The situation is the same with the phone numbers of most people on the list. For instance, the number of Security Deckhand Vitaly Belenko is saved in others’ contact lists not only as “Vitaly FSO”, but also as “VVP”. I wonder what that stands for.

We don't just rely on phone data of course. Here is an extract from the leaked credit score database. Belenko applied for a loan and listed himself under 'military' category with FSO being his official employer.

Boatswain Anatoly Furtel and landing Hand Evgeny Shvedov have the same address of registration - it’s the building of one of the divisions of the FSO in Sochi. I won't bore you with any more cyrillic screenshots, you can read our full text here:navalny.com/p/6620/

With a very simple open source search we managed to identify at least ten FSO officers that are listed as personnel members of Scheherezade. They are Russian state employees, military personnel, and they regularly travel to Italy as a group to work on the mysterious yacht.

Oh, and we also spoke to one of Scheherezade crew members, who confirmed that it is Putin's yacht indeed. We were also sent some pictures from inside the yacht.

To sum up, a dozen of Vladimir Putin’s personal guards and servants are constantly maintaining one of the world’s largest yachts docked in an Italian port. We think that this is a solid enough proof that Scheherazade belongs to Putin himself and must be immediately seized.

For more information on Scheherazade and a tour of all of its six decks, watch our newest video with English subtitles.

As Navalny announced last week,the Anti-Corruption Foundation will not only continue but also expand its work. Our job is to expose Putin's corruption and show where Russian dirty money is hidden.There are many more stories to come. Please support our work
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