Russian-owned superyacht seized in London is owned by Motiv Telecom founder

A £38mn superyacht, detained by police at London’s Canary Wharf on Tuesday morning under the UK’s sanctions regime against Russia, is ultimately owned by the founder of Motiv Telecom, a small mobile phone network in the Urals region, the Financial Times has established.

Described by friends as an “EU citizen”, Vitaly Vasilievich Kochetkov owns the 58-metre Phi through Portsmouth Maritime, a Kitts & Nevis company that in turn controls a Malta-registered yacht charter business, Hexagon Yachting Limited.

The Russian businessman owns two other superyachts, Aurelia and Phi Phantom, which are also both Malta-flagged and are currently moored at Porto di Imperia in Italy, according to documents seen by the FT.

The UK government said it had seized the vessel under the Russian sanctions regime, although Kochetkov is not on any sanctions list. It did not name him and only disclosed that the vessel belonged to a “Russian businessman” as it hailed the seizure of the first superyacht in UK waters as part of the sanctions.

It added that the ownership of the yacht was “deliberately well-hidden” and that it was first identified as being potentially linked to Russia on March 13.

A government source later said the yacht was nominally owned by someone called Sergei Georgievich Naumenko, but that officials were still trying to work out the real ownership. “He [Naumenko] doesn’t have assets commensurate with this gin palace,” he added.

The Department for Transport, which worked with the National Crime Agency and Border Force to identify the vessel, confirmed the yacht was registered to a company based in St Kitts and Nevis but sailed under the Maltese flag.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps hailed the impounding of the vessel as turning “an icon of Russia’s power and wealth into a clear and stark warning to Putin and his cronies”.

A government source said: “This yacht detention is the product of weeks of enquiries, spanning the world, by the National Crime Agency and other agencies. The ownership of many of these vessels and private aircraft is buried in shell companies or shielded by pretend owners. It is the oligarch equivalent of the Russian matryoshka doll — where each layer conceals another, and then another.”

The Phi was in London for a World Superyacht Awards judging panel event on Monday and was due to depart from Canary Wharf at midday on Tuesday. A member of the yacht crew told the FT that four police officers had boarded the vessel that morning and politely explained what was happening, before Shapps arrived moments later with a TV crew.

He described Shapps’ comments as “attention-seeking” and called the transport secretary’s claim that the boat’s Maltese registration was part of an attempt to hide ownership as “simply idiotic”. He added that as transport secretary “Shapps should know that Malta is one of the premium flag-states globally”.

Contrary to claims from government sources that the Phi’s owner was close to Putin, Kochetkov appears to have been sharply at odds with the Russian state. According to Russian media, in early 2021 Russian law enforcement opened a criminal investigation into the parent company of Motiv Telecom, Yekaterinburg-2000, alleging tax evasion.

Neither Kochetkov nor Naumenko could be reached for comment.