The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a journalist consortium, recently claimed that according to leaked documents, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich owned at least ten more yachts in addition to the six that are publicly known.
Abramovich has been hit with sanctions by Britain and the EU, though not the US, for his close ties to Putin.
And once a yacht is seized, authorities are left with the huge costs for maintaining them -- sparking questions about who foots the bill.
"The rule of thumb for maintenance costs is about ten percent of the vessel's value per year, but on some of the bigger yachts it can easily be more," said Ralph Dazert, head of intelligence at SuperYacht Times.
"Keep in mind that this is not just about maintaining the yacht in working order, keeping it safe and compliant with regulations and looking nice, but the whole running cost of the yacht: so also crew, food and beverages, fuel (and) yacht management."
For Finley, however, such expenses are the price to pay for penalising oligarchs who support Putin while enjoying the "benefits of democracy" elsewhere.
"As it became clear that Putin was going to invade, I started highlighting the Russian yachts that are here, just to point out this hypocrisy of the oligarchs," she said.
"They support Putin in destabilising democracy, but at the same time they come here."
Source: AFP
