Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February this year, Russian oligarchs have been subject to sanctions from the European Union and the United States. Among the main targets are mega yachts, which have already been seized by governments in countries such as Germany and France. Since then, billionaires have started to look for ways to “circumvent” the inspection.
According to reports in the European press, some of these boats linked to Russian oligarchs are turning off the automatic identification system (AIS), used to track vessels.
Professor Renato Giacomini, coordinator of the FEI’s Electrical Engineering department, explains that this system tracks ships around the world, in order to ensure the safety of vessels.
“In most cases, what happens is that, through the GPS, the ship itself receives and calculates its position from the satellite signals and transmits this to the other ships and the shore stations, in such a way that this data available for vessel location for both safety and traceability issues”, he explained.
The professor says that the activation of this system is mandatory, but, depending on the size of the vessel and the country where navigation takes place, the legislation may change.
“The possibility of shutting down the system exists, but depending on the size of the ship, this is illegal depending on where it is. A small boat that only uses coastal navigation is different from a large ocean liner,” said Giacomini.
The expert adds that this way of circumventing inspections can generate risks. “If a certain person, who has a vessel of his own, wanted to hide it, the first thing to do would be to turn off those systems. But he gets in a situation where he [barco] will have less security, because no one will know where he is”, adds the FEI professor. The damage to safety would be due to the increase in the possibility of collisions and the difficulty in case there is a need for rescue.
Asked about the possibility of the yachts being located by intelligence services – even with the tracking system turned off – the professor said that, even so, it would be possible to find the yachts.
“It’s always possible, we just can’t guarantee the location of submarines, because the submarine has precisely that intention. As sea water is salty, electromagnetic wave propagation is very bad, it has a lot of loss in sea water, so the radar doesn’t work,” he says.
In the case of a surface ship, explains the expert, it can always be located.
“But if you’re not broadcasting your position regularly, then you’re going to need an active system, a detection system or another vessel, or even systems on land that will be able to locate you. Another way would be by triangulating the ship’s communication radio signals,” she adds.
See pictures of some yachts:
At least five yachts owned by Russian billionaires were anchored or sailing in the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation that has no extradition treaty with the United States, vessel tracking data showed.
The arrival of the vessels to the archipelago off the coast of Sri Lanka came after the imposition of severe Western sanctions on Russia.
The yacht Clio, owned by Oleg Deripaska, founder of US-sanctioned aluminum giant Rusal, docked in the capital Malé in March, according to the MarineTraffic database.
The Titan, by Alexander Abramov, co-founder of steelmaker Evraz, arrived on February 28.
Three other yachts belonging to Russian billionaires were seen sailing in Maldives waters, the data showed, including the 88-meter Nirvana owned by Russia’s richest man Vladimir Potanin.
Most of the vessels were last seen docked in Middle Eastern ports earlier this year.
Source: CNN Brasil
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