YACHT MANAGEMENT BOSS ARRESTED

mask ownership of the yacht in violation of US law.

Complicated Osipov, an employee of Vekselberg who functioned as a property manager for Tango, designed a complicated ownership structure of shell companies to hide Vekselberg’s ownership of the yacht, despite that Vekselberg was the sole user and the ultimate beneficial owner.

It is alleged that Masters concocted a phony name, ’the Fanta’, for the yacht in order to hide the yacht’s connection to Vekselberg.

According to the indictment, Osipov and Masters advised and enabled Tango employees to continue to do business with numerous US companies, using various workarounds to avoid sanctions, such as payments in other currencies and through third parties.

As a result of the schemes, hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegally obtained US services and equipment were supplied to Tango by US companies for the benefit of Vekselberg, supported by US financial transactions and allowing Tango to continue to operate as a luxury yacht. Despite the alleged scheme, the yacht was seized by the authorities in April 2022 in Palma de Mallorca. The US imposed sanctions on Vekselberg in 2018 over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, and in 2022 over his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.