Row erupts after South Africa refuses to seize oligarch’s superyacht

A row has erupted in South Africa after the government says it will not seize a sanctioned Russian oligarch’s superyacht attempting to dock in Cape Town, despite the city’s mayor calling for the country to bar it from entering.

The 142m Lürssen yacht Nord, understood to belong to steel magnate Alexei Mordashov, is worth around US$500m.

57-year-old Mordashov has an estimated fortune of US$18.9bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and is a Putin ally who was named in the Pandora Papers. However, Mordashov’s wealth plummeted after he was sanctioned by the EU and the US following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Nord, which recently caused an international stir after it docked in Hong Kong, departed from the Chinese SAR on 20 October and is currently on the way to Cape Town.

The South African government has insisted that there is no legal basis for it to bar or arrest the yacht when it arrives.

“South Africa has no legal obligation to abide by sanctions imposed by the US and EU,” says Vincent Magwenya, spokesman for South Africa’s president. “We have no reason to prevent their entry into South Africa.

“South Africa’s obligations with respect to sanctions relate only to those that are specifically adopted by the United Nations. Currently, there are no UN-imposed sanctions on the particular individual.”

The governing African National Congress party has historical ties to the Soviet Union, and ANC members acted as observers during the sham referendums held in Ukrainian provinces in September.

However, Cape Town’s mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis, says he has a “moral duty” to oppose Russia’s “unjust war”. He has vowed to block the yacht when it arrives, but it is not clear how city officials plan to prevent Nord from docking.

Magwenya has accused Hill-Lewis of “grandstanding”. He adds: “Municipal governments have no legal control over the country’s borders.”

On Monday, Hill-Lewis posted a Tweet stating there is “no place in our city for accomplices to, and enablers of, Putin’s war”.

Nord, which costs an estimated £200,000 a day to run, has two helipads, 20 staterooms and a mini submarine.

The US State Department criticised Hong Kong earlier this month for allowing the yacht to dock in its waters. Hong Kong’s chief executive John Lee said there was “no legal basis” to seize the megayacht of a Russian oligarch who is under Western sanctions.

Many Russian superyachts have been arrested or denied entry to jurisdictions around the world since the invasion of Ukraine in February.