Surprise at the port of Tarragona this Monday morning. A joint team from the Spanish National Police and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation carried out a search of the luxury yacht "Crescent", owned by Russian oligarch Igor Ivanovich Sechin. This action at the western Mediterranean port took place at around 8am, and as Spanish police sources reported to the Diari de Tarragona newspaper, the aim was to gather information without making arrests. The megayacht has been immobilized since March 16th, 2022, when Spain's merchant marine authorities ordered its provisional seizure as a result of the sanctions imposed by the EU on Russian oligarchs after the start of the war in Ukraine.
The "Crescent" is a huge vessel, 135 metres long and 21 metres across. It also carries the flag of the Cayman Islands and its owner is a close friend of Russian president Vladimir Putin: Igor Ivanovich Sechin is one of the top executives of the Russian state oil company Rosneft, that enterprise being the source of his immense fortune. The yacht arrived in the Catalan city on November 2nd, 2021, and since its immobilization by the authorities four months later, has remained moored at the Port of Tarragona under the supervision of the maritime administration. It was the third Russian-owned ship to be immobilized in Spain after the Ukraine invasion began.
The boarding and search carried out today on the "Crescent" is part of a wider operation that began with the seizure of the Cayman Islands-flagged yacht in Tarragona. At the start of the Ukraine conflict, it was discovered that the vessel was linked to a person or entity blacklisted by the EU. Thus, in March 2022, the Spanish merchant marine authorities justified the provisional seizure over suspicions about the megayacht's status and investigations began to attempt to verify the information on the ownership of the ship. These inquiries into the "Crescent" and its Russian owners are ongoing, and the vessel will remain immobilized in the Port of Tarragona, awaiting future developments in this case, which has generated great media interest and maintains the attention of both the authorities and the general public.