Slick Russian Pirates Steal Mediterranean Yachts

türkçe links to original Turkish article

(Cumhuriyet Newspaper, 26 July 2019)


                                 The cast...uh...I mean crew.

On 13 July, a Russian couple named İlayda Frere and Krill Sokolov
entered the Marmaris office of one of Turkey's most select yacht
charter firms, GMM Yat, wanting to lease the most expensive craft.
The couple gave GMM Yat a 3,000 Euro deposit in cash for a Jeanneau-
type yacht, valued at 2 million Euro.

The yacht left Marmaris harbor that same evening, under the command
of two captains who had arrived from Moscow.  They were 1st Captain
Aleksei Roshchanovski, a retired Russian naval officer with an
international license, and 2nd Captain Anatoli Shutov, a retired
Ukrainian naval officer.The yacht left Marmaris port in such a hurry that
one of the yacht's rope lines snapped, instead of being untied by the crew.

The next day, Patrick, the director of GMM Yat, went to the bay near
Marmaris to check whether the "Ghost 3" had sustained any damage but
as he approached the yacht he was told by a foreigner that "they're
sleeping" so he wasn't taken aboard.  In any case, Patrick checked out
the craft from the outside and returned to Marmaris.

After one night, the crew that rented the yacht turned it over to another
crew that had entered Turkey with fake passports, but whose members
were also professionals.  This crew removed the yacht's tracking device
and placed it on a raft (!) to give the impression that the yacht was
still in the bay near Marmaris.  Two people from the first yacht crew
went to a hotel in Marmaris and 4 of them went to a hotel in Turgutreis,
in Bodrum.



The pirates waited 3 days for a chance to leave Turkey's territorial
waters.  The first crew (in the hotels) stayed in Turkey in case the
Turkish Coast Guard checked on the yacht.  Their plan was that if
the Coast Guard asked about those who initially rented the yacht,
the pirates would say that they themselves were guests on the boat
and that the renters had gone shopping in Turgutreis.

The plan went exactly as they had devised it and the pirates disappeared
with the "Ghost 3", while those in the hotels simultaneously departed
Turkey from Bodrum and Dalaman airports.  When GMM Yat officials
realized that the yacht hadn't come back, they sought out the tracking
device, only to find the device tied to the raft.

The Coast Guard began an investigation and determined that in the
past two years the gang had stolen 23 yachts in Italy, 14 in Greece
and 9 in Croatia.  The pirates then had the yachts' masts removed in
Lebanon and shipped the crafts to South America in cargo vessels
to the buyers there.  "Ghost 3", though, may have been taken to
Albania and the role of "Baltic Shipping Company" in the pirate
scheme is being looked into.

Buyers in South America give the gang specifications for the type
of yacht they want.  The yachts are then sold or rented with fake
documents.  The cost of the pirate yacht fraud is estimated so far at
$100 million.  The gang's financier was identified as Sergey Nikandrov
and the organizer as Oleg Ponomarenko.



     The gang's mastermind (and first mate Vladimir Putin).