Roman Abramovich‘s $ 65 million private jet apparently flew from Moscow to Israel and then to Istanbul when his assets were seized by UK sanctions.
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich owns a Gulfstream G650ER pictured on the right with a registered SP-TOP at Gdansk Lech Walesa Airport in Gdansk, Poland.
- Roman Abramovich’s private jet flew from Israel to Istanbul on Monday, flight tracking data indicates.
- The UK froze the Chelsea FC owner’s assets last week as part of sanctions against Russian oligarchs.
- Abramovich has citizenship in Israel, where planes owned by other oligarchs have landed.
Multiple reports say a private jet owned by authorized Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich flew from Moscow to Israel to Istanbul on Monday.
Information from flight-tracking website Flightradar24 shows that Abramovich’s plane made a short flight across the Mediterranean from Tel Aviv early Monday.
The plane took off from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, Reuters reported.
The Gulfstream G650ER jet with Monday’s flight to Turkey took off from Moscow on Sunday afternoon with LX-ray registration and arrived a day after landing in Tel Aviv in the evening, according to Flightradar24 data.
The flight to Istanbul lasted a little less than two hours, while the flight to Tel Aviv lasted 5 1/2 hours, Flightradar24 data shows. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post.
The jet had earlier flown from Istanbul to Moscow on Saturday, Flightradar24 data indicate.
Various reports have identified Abramovich as the owner of the aircraft. A Twitter user who made headlines by tracking Elon Musk’s jets and tracking the whereabouts of jets now owned by Russian billionaires also identified Abramovich as the owner of the jet.
Gulfstream says its G650ER jet can seat up to 19 passengers and sleep up to 10. A private jet comparison site offers a price tag of $ 65 million.
Roman Abramovich, the owner of Chelsea Football Club, was among seven Russian oligarchs approved by the United Kingdom on Thursday.
Sanctions include confiscating the assets of oligarchs and barring them from doing business with their country. Abramovich has an estimated net worth of $ 13.6 billion, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. He announced earlier this month that he would sell Chelsea FC, but the UK ban meant he could not go ahead with the sale.
The billionaire was reportedly granted Israeli citizenship in 2018 after facing delays in renewing his UK visa.In the past two weeks, at least 14 private jets from Russia have reportedly landed in Israel, whose government has not approved any Russian oligarchs, the Times of Israel reported.
Roman Abramovich: New evidence highlights corruption deal
A BBC investigation has uncovered new evidence about the corrupt deals that made Roman Abramovich’s fortune.
The Chelsea owner made billions after buying an oil company from the Russian government in a rigged auction in 1995. Mr Abramovich paid around $250m (£190m) for Sibneft, before selling it back to the Russian government for $13bn in 2005.
His lawyers say there is no basis for alleging he has amassed very substantial wealth through criminality.
The Russian billionaire was sanctioned by the UK government last week because of his links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mr Abramovich’s assets have been frozen and he has been disqualified as a director of Chelsea Football Club.
The Russian billionaire has already admitted in a UK court that he paid bribes to help Sibneft pull out of the deal. In 2012, his former business associate Boris Berezowski sued him in London.
Mr Roman Abramovich won the case, but he told the court how the real Sibneft auction was rigged and how he paid Mr Berezovsky $ 10 million to pay a Kremlin official. BBC Panorama has found a document that is believed to have been smuggled from Russia.
The information was provided to the program by a confidential source, who said it was secretly copied from files held by Mr Abramovich from Russian law enforcement agencies.
The BBC could not verify this, but it backed up many details in a five-page document checked with other Russian sources.
The document states that the Russian government was defrauded of $ 2.7 billion in the Sibneft deal – a claim backed by a 1997 Russian parliamentary inquiry. The document further states that the Russian authorities sought to bring charges against Mr. Abramovich for fraud.
It said: “Investigators from the Economic Crimes Division have concluded that if Abramovich had been brought to justice, he would have been charged with fraud by an organized criminal group.”
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