Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt bought an Alfa Nero superyacht at an auction, Bloomberg writes, citing Antigua and Barbuda Ambassador to the United States Ronald Sanders.
The yacht has been in Antigua and Barbuda since February 2022, when Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine. In August of that year, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury named Andrey Guryev, the co-owner of PhosAgro, as the owner of the vessel, he was included in the sanctions list. In March 2023, the authorities of Antigua and Barbuda announced that they would put up a yacht allegedly owned by a “Russian oligarch” for auction if the owner did not show up within ten days and claim his rights to the ship. The authorities of Antigua and Barbuda asked the United States to lift sanctions from the ship. They decided to sell the yacht at auction because of the cost of maintaining it. The US lifted restrictions on June 1.
Schmidt paid $67.6 million for the yacht. The businessman was Google’s CEO from 2001-2011. He ranks 59th in the Bloomberg Billionaire Index with a fortune of $25 billion. Guryev is in the same ranking in 195th place with $10.3 billion.
The US Treasury stated that Guryev bought the yacht in 2014 for $120 million. Forbes and the Observer wrote about the businessman’s connection with the ship. At the same time, a representative of Guriev in 2015 said that the businessman does not own a yacht, but “regularly rents” it.
