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Тhe clan of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev makes free use of two luxury yachts worth US$ 59 million that are owned by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), the organization charged with managing the country’s oil wealth for its citizens, according to a story by investigative journalists, published on the website of Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) .

“That means the yachts deprive Azerbaijani citizens of about US$ 12 million per year in oil profits—the amount experts say such yachts typically cost to run. That’s in addition to the US$ 2,000 worth of fuel per hour that the yachts consume,” the journalists point.
Former crew members on one of the yachts told OCCRP that Aliyev and his cronies have regularly used the yachts, often when visiting glamorous destinations such as Saint-Tropez and Cannes on the French Riviera. They were often sent on long trips across the Mediterranean to mislead media or just so that the Azerbaijani VIPs could have lunch on the boats – at a cost of more than $100,000 in fuel.

The 54-meter Prima is one of the two yachts known to be enjoyed by the Aliyevs. Its asking price at the time of sale in 2012 was around US$ 32 million. Its lavish interior accommodates 12 guests, and its common areas - all 350 square meters of them – are decorated with marble, leather and drapery. A 54-meter yacht burns roughly US$ 1,900 per hour in fuel. It costs about US$ 220,000 to fill Prima’s fuel tanks just once – roughly equal to the President Aliyev’s official annual salary. A three-day trip can cost more than $130,000 in fuel alone, the authors highlight.

Currently, Prima sails under the flag of Panama. OCCRP requested a certificate of ownership from the Panamanian consulate in London, but the consulate staff claimed that there was no such vessel in their database. A representative at the US office of the Panama Authority was able to find the vessel, and the Maritime office in Panama provided confirmation that the yacht was on its registry. When this was reported to London, the consulate took a different line and announced that the yacht was a “bareboat” charter, meaning it had no permanent crew and therefore no ownership information could be supplied.|

But Prima is also registered with the American Bureau of Shipping, which says it is owned by SOCAR. Officially, the American Bureau of Shipping informed OCCRP that information about previous owners of boats was not publicly available. In spite of this, one staffer complied with a request and provided the information. According to this representative, the main company currently associated with Prima is the Panamanian-registered Prima Shipping and Marine Services. One of its directors is Rasul Hasanov, who works at the State Maritime Administration of Azerbaijan. Both Hasanov and Gudrat Gurbanov, head of Azerbaijan’s State Maritime Administration, frequently used the yacht, former crew members told OCCRP.

More often, the yacht was used by persons close to the president: ministers, bodyguards and their families. A frequent guest was Transport Minister Ziya Mammadov, known for his dealings with the Aliyevs and lobbying efforts to boost the image of Azerbaijan in the West. Crew members said those who used the yacht could be remarkably circumspect; when an Azerbaijan-France congress took place in Cannes in 2013, officials only used Prima as a place to dine, and stayed overnight in hotels out of fear of being spotted by journalists.

Azerbaijani General Beyler Eyyubov, a man described as Aliyev’s right-hand man, came aboard several times, visiting with numerous bodyguards and families in Porto Cervo, an exclusive resort in Sardinia. “They never slept on the yacht, and they used to spend their time in the most expensive hotel, spending something like € 45,000-50,000 (US$ 51,000-57,000) per night,” the crew member said.

Prima staff members were often chosen for their ability to keep their mouths shut rather than their technical skills. Crew members asked that OCCRP not identify them lest they risk losing future assignments. For example, Prima was temporarily seized by Italian port authorities in 2012 for dumping fuel and bilge water into the sea. He was fined, but his willingness to follow orders and remain silent is said to have saved his job.

According to staff, Prima often sails from one location to the next, seemingly at random. The crew suspects it is a diversion to keep the identity of its owners and when and where they use the yacht a secret. “They would order us to go back and forth across the Mediterranean, with an empty yacht, they were never there. It must have done thousands of miles: go to Greece, go to France, go to Sardinia, to Gibraltar,” one crew member told OCCRP.

“Fortunately, the Aliyevs appear to have a number of choices when it comes to luxury yachts,” the contributors of the story mock as they cite a crew member as saying that the presidential clan has at least two yachts in the Caspian Sea and additional yachts in other locations.

The OCCRP investigation revealed that one of the two yachts in the Caspian is the oddly named 44-meter superyacht “Sedation A”. Crafted in 2007 by luxury shipbuilders Heesen Yachts, she can accommodate 10 guests and nine crew members. The interior was designed by Omega Architects, who described it as a “unique ethnic design that features crushed bamboo.”

A sister ship of Sedation A named My Petra went on the market in 2010 for about US$ 27 million. “The average Azerbaijani earns US$ 5,040 per year, meaning he’d have to work for 5,357 years to save enough for a yacht like Sedation. But the yacht’s buyer was no ordinary Azerbaijani; this purchase was also made through SOCAR. The purchase was confirmed in a 2007 annual report published on the SOCAR website. It is also mentioned that SOCAR bought another boat at the same time, the smaller Atlant that is often photographed alongside Sedation A at the Baku Yacht Club. In the report there is no mention of purchase price, and no explanation of why it was bought,” OCCRP highlights noting that the report does not say much, and the text referring to the yachts is only present in the English translation – it does not appear at all in the Azerbaijani-language text.

Presently, Sedation A is said to be owned by Caspian Marine Services, a company closely linked to SOCAR, according to the American Bureau of Shipping database. However, Sedation A is also registered in Russia. By scouring a PDF file of the entire Russian shipping registry, OCCRP was able to find Sedation A, with its owner listed as SOCAR.

The journalists point out that among Baku residents, Sedation A’s connection to Ilham Aliyev is “something of an open secret”; one local posted a photo of himself right next to Sedation, posting “#Yaxt klub Baku#sedation#Mr#President#yaxt#Ilham#Aliev”.
“The total value of the two yachts can be pegged at US$ 59 million. The operational cost of the yachts would be around 10 percent of their initial value per year. What’s more, another 10 percent of their total cost would likely have been spent on accessories, breakdown, berthing and other expenses. The $12 million annual costs for the seldom-used fleet would employ more than 2,380 Azerbaijani workers for one year at the average salary. It also exceeds President Aliyev's official annual salary of US$ 228,000 by more than 50 times,” the authors of the story highlight.

Why SOCAR needs two luxury yachts and why, at least in the case of Prima, it is not used by the oil company is not clear. Spokesmen for SOCAR and the President did not return phone calls or emails about the story.

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