- Untrained crew members on the Scheherazade were reportedly following instructions on videos.
- eSysman SuperYachts posted a video on YouTube claiming the crew were Russian secret service members.
- The Scheherazade, linked to Vladimir Putin, has been seized by Italian authorities.
Untrained crew members aboard a superyacht linked to Vladimir Putin had to follow instructions on videos, according to claims made in a new video.
eSysman Superyachts is a YouTube channel run by a former superyacht crew member who has been posting videos for several years. His videos have been viewed almost 75 million times.
In a YouTube video published on May 20, he went to Marina Di Cararra in Italy, where the $700 million Scheherazade linked to the Russian president has been moored for more than six months. Earlier this month it was seized by Italian authorities over its links with "prominent elements of the Russian government".
The 140-metre yacht has six floors, two helipads, a swimming pool, a spa complex, and a beauty salon, according to a YouTube video posted by activists working with the imprisoned Putin opponent Alexei Navalny.
The publisher of eSysman Superyachts said he spoke to someone who worked on the superyacht when it was being built. "When it came out of the shipyard, they had to do handover notes for the other crew." Having two independent crews was "unheard of," he said.
"When they were on board, they had to make videos of how to launch a tender [support vessel], and how to hang the fenders," adding "they had to make videos in English of the procedures of how to do things and they said that the person who told them to do that would later add Russian subtitles to the videos," eSysman Superyachts said.
He added: "It also means that if you have to do a step-by-step procedure on a video of how to launch a tender, that means the person that's watching it has never launched a tender."
eSysman Superyachts said "the crew, up until a couple of months ago, were all Russian and they were all part of the FSO, which is the Russian secret service," according to a crew list manifest.
He asked: "Why would you have Russian security service working on a boat owned by an oil tycoon?"
Insider reported that a Russian billionaire acted as a "straw owner" to hide the true owner of superyachts, including the Scheherazade, worth about $1 billion.
Amid western sanctions, superyachts belonging to Russian oligarchs have been seized or detained around the world. The US is trying to seize a $325 million superyacht in Fiji that belongs to Suleiman Kerimov.
The FBI found evidence aboard the vessel incriminating the owner, who "caused US dollar transactions to be routed through US financial institutions for the support and maintenance of the Amadea."
Five superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs are now docked in Turkey in a bid to avoid Western sanctions triggered by the invasion of Ukraine, Insider reported earlier this month.