Russian billionaire ‘hid yacht from his ex-wife’

A billionaire thought to have close links with the Kremlin has been accused of trying to hide his £350 million yacht from his ex-wife, reports The Times.

At the High Court in London, Tatiana Akhmedova, 41, claimed that Farkhad Akhmedov, 62, tried to conceal his assets to avoid paying her after Britain’s biggest divorce battle in 2016.

The court heard that in 2014, Akhmedov bought a superyacht from Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea football club. Akhmedov initially assigned his vessel to one company but in December 2014 paid £230 million to a firm in Panama, which purchased the yacht.

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“The husband engineered the transfer of the boat to a better-protected company at the very time that he realised that the marriage was over for good,” said Tatiana Akhmedova’s lawyer, who accused Farkhad Akhmedov of using “cipher nominee companies” and “alter-ego offshore entities”.

The 377ft superyacht has room for 18 guests and 50 crew in 25 additional cabins. The Times says she boasts “the largest swimming pool of any super-yacht”, nine decks and a pair of helipads. Her security features include an anti-missile system, bulletproof windows and bomb-resistant doors.

Farkhad Akhmedov, a trader who Washington says has close ties to the Kremlin, was ordered to give his estranged wife £453 million by a High Court judge in 2016. It was Britain’s biggest ever divorce settlement. She argued that she was due almost half his fortune because of her “equal contributions to the welfare of the family” during their marriage.

The record-breaking divorce battle saw her awarded her husband’s modern art collection – valued at £90 million – as well as the contents of their former home, worth almost £2.5 million, and a £350,000 Aston Martin.