Her Ex Tried to Hide a $500M Superyacht. It Didn't Work

Tatiana Akhmedova will get 380-foot luxury Luna in her divorce settlement with Russian oligarch
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 20, 2018 12:53 PM CDT
Her Ex Tried to Hide a $500M Superyacht. It Didn't Work
Tatiana Akhmedova arrives at court in the divorce case against Russian billionaire businessman Farkhad Akhmedov, in London on Feb. 1, 2018.   (Rick Findler/PA via AP)

Persistence and a little detective work has paid off for Tatiana Akhmedova, in the form of a $500 million superyacht to be handed over to her by her soon-to-be ex-husband. Reuters and the South China Morning Post report that UK judge Charles Haddon-Cave has ordered Russian oligarch Farkhad Akhmedov to sign over the 380-foot Luna to his 41-year-old wife as part of a $635 million divorce settlement Cave awarded her in 2016—nearly 42% of Akhmedov's fortune, and said to be the largest British divorce settlement of all time. (The couple moved from Russia to London in 1993, where Akhmedova has lived ever since and raised their two sons.) And it's some boat Akhmedova will soon be docking: a nine-deck expedition yacht with 50 crew members, two helipads, a 65-foot swimming pool, a mini-submarine, and even an anti-missile system.

The new court order comes after Akhmedova says she never received any money from the settlement, with Cave noting it appeared the 62-year-old Akhmedov had taken "elaborate steps to conceal his wealth and evade enforcement of the judgment," per the London Times. Akhmedov said he'd sold the yacht back in 2014, but it turned out the firm he'd sold it to was simply one of his own offshore companies, and Akhmedova's attorneys eventually tracked the yacht down in dry dock in Dubai, where it remains under court order. Akhmedov, meanwhile, says the British court system is exploiting Dubai courts, and he blames the Luna seizure on recent bad blood between the UK and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Can it really be a coincidence?," Akhmedov said in an email to the SCMP. (This superyacht is souped up with water cannons to fight off pirates.)

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