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SuperyachtIndex Press releases

Wavefront announces shipment of first batch of vigilant fls® 600.

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Top ten brand new superyachts to charter in 2023

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By Nina Done   2 June 2023

With the summer season now in full swing, we take a look at some of the newest additions to the charter fleet for 2023.

Offering unparalleled levels of privacy, the chance to spend quality time with your closest friends and family, world-class leisure and entertainment facilities and stunning surroundings there really is no better way to enjoy a vacation than on a luxury yacht charter. Read on to discover our top ten picks of the best new yachts to charter in 2023;

Launched by Golden Yachts last month, the 78m (255ft) superyacht O'REA  is scheduled for delivery to her owner this June, when she will be made available for charter around the sublime cruising grounds of Greece . 

Showcasing a sleek exterior with a plumb bow, the yacht has been designed with relaxation in mind, with plenty of areas onboard where guests can kick back, unwind and entertain in maximum comfort and style.

Highlights include : an expansive swimming pool on her main deck, health bar at the entrance of her lounge area and an abundance of top-quality spa facilities including a sauna, massage room and Hammam. 

Commissioned by highly experienced owners, you can be assured that the elegant 66m (216ft) Rossinavi superyacht ALCHEMY will offer everything you could possibly want on a luxury yacht charter.

Penned by the esteemed Philippe Briand for Vitruvius Yachts, the steel and aluminum motor yacht is a masterclass in design and innovation, with Enrico Gobbi at Team 4 Design heading up her interior scheme.

Highlights include : a spa-centered beach club, a suspended glass staircase, zen-calm interiors and a huge array of land and water toys

Marking her debut onto the world stage at the Palm Beach International Boat Show in March, the custom Amels 60 (196ft) superyacht ENTOURAGE offers her guests a floating oasis of luxury. 

Providing accommodation for 12 guests, she boasts an exceptionally well-equipped master cabin, comprising a dedicated lounge, two bathrooms and adjoining twin-bed guest suite, as well as a fold-down balcony providing glorious over-water views.

Highlights include : a vast sundeck where guests can sip drinks in her Jacuzzi pool or relax on sumptuous loungers, chic light-filled interiors, fold-down balconies and wide deck spaces offering endless opportunities to relax and unwind. 

Available for charter around the glittering coastline of Croatia this summer, the 52m (171ft) Custom sailing yacht SCORPIOS will cut a fine figure in the water as she powers along under sail. Showcasing a striking black hull and blonde teak decking, she is every inch the contemporary sailing yacht .

Her stylish flair continues into her beautiful interiors, featuring elegant herringbone wooden floors, plush carpets and sumptuous sofas, with discrete lighting adding a warm ambiance.

Highlights include : a sun-kissed flybridge offering guests a variety of options with far-reaching views across a number of zones; from her expansive forward dining area to her Jacuzzi with swim-up bar and semi-circular sunpads further aft. 

Marking Benetti ’s third hull in its award-winning B.Now 50 series, the 50m (164ft) superyacht FANTASEA is home to a wealth of charter-pleasing amenities and beautiful interiors that will have charter guests in raptures. 

Designed to reflect the characteristics of the owner’s unique vision and insight, the yacht offers up a wealth of interior and exterior relaxing and social spaces that flow harmoniously between one another.

Highlights include : her vast sundeck, stunning upper deck saloon and 36 square-meter waterside beach club with infinity pool and loungers.

ETERNAL SPARK

Marking the first hull in Bilgin Yacht ’s highly-anticipated 163 series, the 50m (163ft) superyacht ETERNAL SPARK is the perfect blend of performance, style and innovation. 

With a bright and airy scheme that has been cleverly engineered through the use of full-height windows and low external bulwarks, the motor yacht offers guests spacious living areas set across a unique layout, with accommodation for 12 in six luxurious suites. 

Highlights include : a convertible indoor movie theater, with an additional alfresco cinema set-up, oversized glass-walled Jacuzzi on her sundeck and a sunken-level beach club featuring a full-height Finnish sauna, ice fountain, entertainment system and wet bar.

Winning a special commendation award at the World Superyacht awards 2023 , charterers will not go far wrong in making 44m (145ft) yacht ACE  their top choice for their next luxury yacht vacation. 

Built by the up-and-coming Conrad Shipyard in Poland, the yacht is not just a pretty face. Featuring a slew of crowd-pleasing amenities, guests will also love her generous proportions and elegant interiors.

Highlights include : a sun-kissed top deck, featuring an infinity pool with a shaded nearby sit-up bar providing day-long refreshments. This area also benefits from an alfresco cinema set up for movie nights under the stars.  

Available for charter around the Mediterranean , the 40m (131ft) yacht LADY FIRST is the perfect platform for first-timers looking to dip their toes into the charter waters this summer.

Launched earlier this year as part of their Belissima 130 range, the Riva yacht is elegance personified.

Highlights include : a lavish, 60 square-meter beach club and a spacious sundeck that provides guests with ample alfresco outdoor entertainment spaces. Meanwhile, principle charterers are in for a treat with their own on-deck stateroom complete with a terrace and Jacuzzi that offers next level privacy and comfort for their yacht vacation.

Representing the second hull in Gulf Craft ’s Majesty 120 series, the 37m (121ft) superyacht OLIVIA will mark her debut onto the charter market in the celebrated cruising grounds of the West Mediterranean .

The yacht's tri-deck design offers ample spaces for socializing and relaxing, as well as a variety of interior and alfresco dining options.

Highlights include : an expansive sundeck with a beechwood finish wet bar and large Jacuzzi, a crowd-pleasing beach club and swim platform with retractable steps where guests can take to the warm Mediterranean sea on her array of toys and accessories. 

Set to welcome her first guests around the sublime cruising grounds of the East Mediterranean, the sumptuous 36m (117ft) yacht ANDIAMO makes a wonderfully comfortable choice for a luxury yacht charter this summer. 

The brand new Sanlorenzo SD118 has been purpose-built for outdoor living, with generous deck spaces offering swathes of sunbathing opportunities and plenty of lounging space. She also offers a great family-friendly layout; ideal for guests with children or groups of friends keen to experience the high life. 

Highlights include : a large swim platform and beach club stocked with an array of the latest water toys, exercise equipment, on-deck Jacuzzi and fold-down balconies in the main and upper deck salons. She also boasts a top speed of 19 knots, perfect for island hopping around the East Mediterranean. 

So there we have it, ten incredible new yachts all available for charter this year and you can be among the first step on board and experience a wonderful vacation in the utmost luxury.

To find out more about any of the superyachts featured in this list get in touch with your preferred yacht charter broker . Alternatively, view the entire fleet of superyachts available for luxury yacht charter.

Other standout new yachts available for charter

48m Dunya Yachts 2024

47m Sanlorenzo 2023

55m Custom 2024

41m Benetti 2023

30m Ferretti Yachts 2023

27m Sanlorenzo 2023

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Featured Luxury Yachts for Charter

This is a small selection of the global luxury yacht charter fleet, with 3676 motor yachts, sail yachts, explorer yachts and catamarans to choose from including superyachts and megayachts, the world is your oyster. Why search for your ideal yacht charter vacation anywhere else?

136m | Lurssen

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115m | Lurssen

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85m | Golden Yachts

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88m | Golden Yachts

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84m | Feadship

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93m | Feadship

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88m | Perini Navi

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122m | Lurssen

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Northrop & Johnson is proud to offer an extensive, global and all-encompassing selection of superyachts for sale. The superyacht sector comprises the world’s most luxurious, well-designed, top-performing yachts with a wide range of amenities and styles. We hope you find your dream yacht below. When you do, please contact a Northrop & Johnson sales broker to begin the buying process.

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Which Superyacht is Right for You?

The type of superyachts best suited for you depends on the on-water experience you want. You may want power and speed, ensuring a motor-powered superyacht is right for you. Alternatively, you may want to feel the wind pushing you across the water, so a sailing yacht is best suited for your needs. In either respect, the most popular superyachts feature incredible amenities, top performance and exceptional design that allows them to retain their value for resale or charter.

When choosing the ideal superyacht, you – with the help of your broker – will weigh various options and features, including style, type of yacht, build pedigree, crew layout, facilities, décor and more. Whether you are looking for a large, modern motor yacht or a classically styled gentlemen’s yacht, Northrop & Johnson has a wide selection of superyacht types available for sale.

When buying or building a yacht, remember: first and foremost, your yacht is for you and your family or friends to use. What type of experience and use are you looking for in your ownership? Are you interested in a new or used yacht? Custom built or semi-custom? How are you planning to use your yacht? If you are planning to charter your yacht to help offset some of the running costs, then factor in the charterer, but remember, a yacht is very personal and you must consider your own needs as a priority.

Types of Superyachts

What type of boat best suits your needs

The type of yacht will shape the experience for the owner. The most popular superyachts (be they sail or motor) have a combination of elements that make them strong across the board both during ownership and in resale value and charter success. From the style and type of yacht and the build pedigree to the crew layout, the facilities and even the décor, there are many factors that, when combined, influence the enjoyment of yacht ownership. Whether you are looking for a large, modern motor yacht or a classically styled gentlemen’s yacht, Northrop & Johnson has a wide selection of superyacht types available for sale. When buying or building a yacht, remember that first and foremost your yacht is for you and your family or friends to use. What type of experience and use are you looking for in your ownership? Are you interested in a new or used yacht? Custom built or semi-custom? How are you planning to use your yacht? If you are planning to charter your yacht to help offset some of the running costs then factor in the charterer, but remember, a yacht is very personal and it is important that you think of your own needs as a priority.

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July 8, 2024

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To boost ocean research, some scientists are turning to superyachts

by Laurel Chor, Bloomberg News

For almost two years, Robert Brewin collected data from the bow of a superyacht as it sailed pristine waters from the Caribbean Sea to the Antarctic Ocean.

The Archimedes, a 222-foot "adventure" yacht then owned by the late hedge funder James Simons, boasts a gym, a jacuzzi and an elevator. But between 2018 and 2020, Brewin was concerned only with the boat's Sea-Bird Scientific Solar Tracking Aiming System, installed to measure light reflecting off of the water. A senior lecturer at the UK's University of Exeter, Brewin and his colleagues were analyzing microplankton—microscopic organisms at the base of the marine food chain—by studying the ocean's color. The Sea-Bird's readouts helped them verify satellite imagery.

Brewin's was not your typical superyacht itinerary, but he is one of hundreds of scientists to have used an adventure yacht—also known as expedition or explorer yachts—to conduct research on the ocean. In a paper published in Frontiers in Remote Sensing , Brewin and his co-authors touted the potential of "harnessing superyachts" for science, concluding that "reaching out to wealthy citizen scientists may help fill [research capability] gaps."

It's a view shared—and being pushed—by the Yacht Club of Monaco and the Explorers Club, a New York City-based organization focused on exploration and science (of which, full disclosure, I am a member). In March, the groups co-hosted an environmental symposium that included an awards ceremony for yacht owners who "stand out for their commitment to protecting the marine environment ." The Archimedes won a "Science & Discovery" award.

"If a yacht is operating 365 days a year, rather than having it sit idle it'd be much better for it to contribute a positive return through science and conservation," says Rob McCallum, an Explorers Club fellow and founder of US-based EYOS Expeditions, which runs adventure yacht voyages.

EYOS charters yachts from private owners for its excursions, and is a founding member of Yachts for Science, a four-year-old organization that matches privately owned yachts with scientists who need time at sea. (Other members include yacht builder Arksen, media firm BOAT International, and nonprofits Nekton Foundation and Ocean Family Foundation.) Yachts for Science will enable about $1 million worth of donated yacht time this year, McCallum says, a figure he expects to hit $15 million by 2029.

"There's a personal satisfaction that we are contributing to something that is bigger than us," says Tom Peterson, who co-owns an insurance underwriting company in California and has what he jokingly refers to as a "mini superyacht."

Every year for the past decade, Peterson has donated about 15 to 20 days of time and fuel on the 24-meter Valkyrie to scientists, who he takes out himself as a licensed captain and former scuba dive operator. He often works with the Shark Lab at California State University Long Beach, and allows researchers to stay aboard for days at a time instead of having to constantly make the 1.5-hour trip to and from shore.

To link up with scientists, Peterson works with the International SeaKeepers Society, a Florida-based nonprofit that engages the yachting community to support ocean conservation and research. "The more we understand things about the ocean in general, the better we all are in the long run," he says.

When "superyacht" and "the environment" appear in the same sentence, it's usually in a different context. In 2019, one study estimated that a single 71-meter superyacht has the same annual carbon footprint as about 200 cars. In 2021, another paper found that superyachts were the single greatest contributor to the carbon footprint of 20 of the world's most prominent billionaires, accounting for 64% of their combined emissions.

"If you really want to respect the environment, you can just go surf," says Grégory Salle, a senior researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research and author of the book Superyachts: Luxury, Tranquility and Ecocide. Salle is open to the idea that superyachts could be used to advance scientific research, but says it's contradictory for anyone to buy a superyacht and claim to be truly concerned about the environment.

McCallum says people who own adventure yachts tend to be younger than your standard superyacht owner, and have a particular interest in remote and pristine places. "They're not the sort of people that are content to just hang out in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean," he says. "Antarctica, the Arctic, the remote Indian Ocean, the remote Pacific Ocean, the Subantarctic islands… that's where you're going to find us delivering our services."

Explorer yachts aren't the only way scientists can reach those destinations, but demand for dedicated research vessels does outstrip available supply. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), arguably the world's greatest collector of oceanographic data, has a fleet of 15 research and survey vessels for the use of its scientists.

Academic researchers can also apply to use the fleet, often at a subsidized rate. But scientists request roughly 15,000 to 20,000 days of boat time every year. In 2019, NOAA was able to fill just 2,300 of them, according to an internal study.

That gap is particularly problematic as the planet warms. Oceans provide services that scientists call "existentially important," producing more than half of the oxygen we breathe and serving as the world's largest carbon sink. They also absorb 30% of our carbon emissions and 90% of the excess heat generated by them.

G. Mark Miller, a retired NOAA Corps officer who was in charge of several of the agency's research vessels, has a different solution in mind when it comes to bolstering ocean research: smaller boats, fit for purpose. Superyachts can cost north of $500 million, he says, "why don't we build a hundred $5 million vessels and flood the ocean science community?"

After leaving NOAA, Miller in 2021 launched Virginia-based Greenwater Marine Sciences Offshore with a vision of building a global fleet of research vessels and offering their use at affordable prices. He says hiring a NOAA boat can cost scientists between $20,000 and $100,000 per day. GMSO plans to charge less than $10,000 a day for most missions. The company says it's close to acquiring its first three vessels.

Miller hopes his business model will help scientists conduct the work they need to—particularly in under-served regions like the Asia-Pacific—without worrying about getting a luxury yacht covered in "muddy worms, plankton goo, dead fish [and] whale snot." He describes yacht owners donating boat time to scientists as "better than nothing," and says it can help get regular people interested in science and exploration.

Christopher Walsh, captain of the Archimedes, says he and his crew love taking part in science initiatives, especially when there's an educational component. "I get a real thrill when we can stream to the classrooms—you can't imagine the enthusiasm the kids display," Walsh says. "That gives me a lot of hope for the future."

Journal information: Frontiers in Remote Sensing

2024 Bloomberg News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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The 25 Largest Yachts in the World

The list runs from lürssen's 592-foot 'azzam' to fincantieri 439-foot 'serene,' with a fascinating group of bespoke vessels in between..

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The new arrivals in 2024 knock the mighty 436.4-foot  Al Mirqab   and  Koru , Jeff Bezos’s sailing yacht, off the list. The “smallest” yacht— Serene —measures a whopping 439.3 feet. A raft of behemoths didn’t make it, including Feadship’s 290-foot Project 821 that is launching this year, the largest build from the Dutch shipyard to date.

Two of Lürssen’s 2024 deliveries also fell short, including Project Deep Blue and Project JassJ. That said, the German yard remains top of the leader board with the immoveable 592.6-foot  Azzam . It also claims 13 of the 25 world’s largest yachts, two of which are new entries.

The list is interesting because most were built in the last 15 years, but there are several historical yachts, including  Savarona , launched in 1931, and  El Mahrousa , launched in 1865, that withstand the test of time. Others like  Yas  and  OK are conversions from other types of vessels. The inimitable  A  is a one-of-a-kind, never-to-be-repeated sailing superyacht.

Here are the world’s top 25 yachts by length.

Azzam | 592 feet, 6 inches

Lürssen could never really boast about Azzam after its launch in 2013 because of the owner’s penchant for privacy, though it did describe the interior by Christophe Leoni, which features a 95-foot-long main salon, as “inspired by the Empire style of the early 19th century.” Owner Mubarak Saad al Ahbabi directed a team of designers and engineers who started with the bare concept, worked through the technical challenges of what might be the most complex superyacht ever, and finished with an unusually large vessel that can top the 30-knot mark when operating in “sprint mode”. Its gas turbines, connected to water jets, also give it the ability to operate at high speed in shallow waters. Nauta Yacht’s exterior features a long, sleek forward area, with well-proportioned tiers moving up to the skydeck. It took an impressive six million man-hours—or four years including engineering—to build.  Azzam  accommodates up to 36 guests, and a crew of 80.

Fulk Al Salamah | 538 feet, 1 inch

Little information has been released about the world’s second-longest superyacht, the custom-built Fulk Al Salamah , and it has been shrouded in mystery since it was first announced in 2014. Even the overall length of 538.1 feet has been estimated from AIS data. However, the imposing vessel, built and delivered by Italian builder Mariotti Yachts in their Genoa shipyard in 2016, is believed to be owned by Sultan Haitham bin Tariq of Oman. Last refit in 2021, the yacht has an exterior design by Studio de Jorio, and it is considered by some to resemble more of a support vessel than a superyacht. Nonetheless, aerial photography shows an impressively large helideck, raked masts, and a bathing platform.

Eclipse | 533 feet, 1 inch

The 533.1-foot stately  Eclipse , one of two yachts on this list owned by sanctioned billionaire Roman Abramovich, took five years to design and build. When it left the Blohm+Voss shipyard in Hamburg in 2010, it was the world’s largest yacht. The interior has 17 staterooms and a palatial primary suite, with the capacity to carry 85 crew. Both the interior and exterior are designed by Terence Disdale. A proportional profile is defined by tiered decks that sweep upward and bend ever so slightly at the aft ends. Eclipse  has a 185-foot-long owner’s deck, the capacity to hold three helicopters, a sophisticated stabilization system, six tenders, and an enormous spa, gym and beach club, not to mention one of the largest swimming pools on any superyacht. Hybrid diesel-electric engines are connected to Azipod drives that give Eclipse a top-end speed of 21 knots, with a range of 6,000 nautical miles.

Dubai | 531 feet, 5 inches

Even at 531.5 feet, Dubai ’s all-white Winch-designed exterior belies the dramatic and vibrant interior within. Colorful mosaic floors, a spiraling glass staircase, 70-foot-wide atrium, and bursts of red, blue, and green create a carnival of scene. Originally commissioned for Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei as a joint project between Blohm+Voss and Lürssen . Known as “Panhandle,” the project was halted in 1998 with just a bare hull and skeletal superstructure. The hull was sold to the government of Dubai, and, under the direction of the country’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, work on the 531.5-footer began again, though this time by Platinum Yachts. Dubai delivered in 2006 and is now the sheikh’s royal yacht, with accommodations for 24 guests and quarters for 88 crew. The SOLAS-certified seven-decked yacht has a landing pad for a Black Hawk helicopter, submarine garage, disco and cinema, and can reach a top speed of 26 knots. There’s also a waterfall that cascades from the yacht’s pool, located aft of the main deck. The yacht’s range of 8,500 nm at 25 knots gives it the potential to cruise around the world in record time.

Blue | 518 feet, 3 inches

Lürssen’s newest entry on the list, Blue , which delivered to its Middle Eastern owner in July 2022, may rank at number five out of the world’s largest yachts, but its diesel-electric hybrid propulsion system goes a long way to minimize emissions. The yacht also features an electric Azimuth pod drive that can be used independently or in conjunction with the twin propeller shafts. There is a waste-water treatment system and an advanced exhaust treatment system to help reduce NOx levels, as well as cut down on vibration and noise pollution. Interior and exterior design is by Terence Disdale, Blue is defined in profile by a raked bow with a helipad, an aft deck pool, and twin balconies forward either side of the owner’s full-beam suite. There is a second, smaller helipad aft. The British designer has reportedly penned a feminine and elegant interior, though no images have yet been released.

Dilbar | 511 feet, 8 inches

The 2016 launch of Dilbar gave Lürssen the distinction of not only building the longest yacht ever ( Azzam ), but also the largest in terms of volume. Espen Øino designed the exterior, creating a full-bodied superstructure of long, flowing decks, along with two helicopter pads,two helicopter pads, one of which has a hangar with an H175 helicopter always on standby.  Dilbar  also has an oversized garden and an 82-foot swimming pool that can hold an incredible 6,357-cubic-feet of water and according to Lürssen, is the world’s longest on a yacht. The interior by  Winch Design  is defined by its “rare and exclusive luxury materials,” says the builder, declining to go into detail. Despite  Dilbar ’s volume, the designers did a masterful job making the yacht look relatively svelte. In June 2020, Dilbar returned to Lürssen for a significant refit, where the yacht remains following U.S. sanctions placed on the owner, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, in 2022. The yacht’s value is estimated to be $600 million.

Al Saïd | 508 feet, 5 inches

Another 500-plus-foot yacht from Lürssen, the original Project Sunflower gained its official name of Al Saïd following its launch in 2016. Espen Øino’s exterior is akin to a classic cruise liner, complete with the twin-exhaust stacks in the center of the superstructure. Owned by the Sultan of Oman, the yacht was listed for the sale for the first time in April 2022 for an undisclosed sum, but a buyer has yet to be confirmed. The six-decked  Al Saïd  can carry 154 crew and an estimated 70 guests across 26 suites. Lürssen reports a top speed of 22 knots. The London-based Redman Whiteley Dixon studio designed the interior, which includes a concert hall that can hold a 50-piece orchestra, a private cinema for 50 people; you’ll also find a medical room and dental care on board.

A+ | 483 feet, 1 inch

Very little is known about A+ (formerly Topaz) , which was launched by Lürssen in 2012. Tim Heywood Designs did the exterior, which features helipads on the foredeck and amidships on an upper deck. A lower aft deck includes a swimming pool. The German yard has not released any images of the Terence Disdale interior. Reported to be owned by Manchester City Football Club owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan—Emirati royalty and deputy prime minister of the UAE— A+  is equipped with a 40-foot Vikal catamaran beachlander and is powered by six Wärtsilä engines to reach a top speed of 22 knots. It can carry 62 guests and up to 79 crew and was last refit in 2022.

Prince Abdulaziz | 482 feet, 3 inches

The 5,200-tonne Prince Abdulaziz is one of the Saudi Royal family’s yachts, its first owner being King Fahd. Designed by Maierform, the yacht was the longest and tallest in the world at the time of its launch, a title the 482.3-foot  Prince Abdulaziz  held for 22 years until  Dubai  launched in 2006. The late David Nightingale Hicks, known for his use of bright colors, was the interior designer. The lobby is said to be a replica of the Titanic . The yacht is also rumored to be carrying surface-to-air missiles, though that may be an urban legend. Launched by Helsingør Værft in Denmark in 1984, it was last refit in 2023.

OK | 479 feet

Originally built by Japan’s Oshima Shipbuilding in 1982, the semisubmersible heavy lift ship was used for decades by DYT Yacht Transport as float-on yacht carrier. In 2022, the vessel underwent a private conversion at Karmarine shipyard in Turkey, turning it into a luxury, though highly unusual, yacht named OK . Modifications include a matte-black paint job, gold-tinted glazing, and teak decking. The vessel’s 328-foot submersible aft deck—a feature that first attracted her new owner, who uses OK to transport their 150-foot ketch—is now covered in a carpet of artificial grass. A 40-tonne crane allows for the safe and easy launch and retrieval of a vast range of toys, including a seaplane. The interior by Bozca Design is reported to include accommodation for 20 guests, a botanical garden, and a crazy Willy Wonka–inspired glass elevator that operates outside of the yacht’s superstructure.

Opera | 479 feet

Very little is known about Lürssen’s mysterious superyacht Opera , though it’s thought to be a rebuild of Project Sassi, which was destroyed in a fire in 2018 at the German shipyard. Now four feet longer than the first iteration, the superyacht became the 11th largest yacht in the world when it delivered to its patient owner in 2023. Exterior and interior designed by Terence Disdale, Opera has a whopping 66-foot beam and an interior volume exceeding 10,000GT. No interior images have been released yet, though judging by its two swimming pools, one with a lifting floor, and two helipads—one on the bow and one on the upper aft deck—it seems no expense has been spared.

El Mahrousa | 478 feet, 1 inch

El Mahrousa , which means “The Protected” in Arabic, is currently Egypt’s presidential yacht, though the 478.1-footer has a separate history as that country’s royal yacht. The London-based Samuda Brothers began the build in 1863, and it was launched in 1865. The world’s oldest superyacht—and formerly the world’s biggest—was originally built for the Ottoman governor of Egypt, Khedive Ismail, and later carried three Egyptian kings into exile. The yacht was also at the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. It features external design by the British naval architect Sir Oliver Lang and has had multiple modifications over the years, including a lengthening by 40 feet in 1872 and another 17 feet in 1905. During the second refit, the owners replaced its paddle-wheel engines with turbine-driven propellers. The yacht, in care of the Egyptian Navy, occasionally goes to sea for a day or two. In 2015, it was used to inaugurate the new Suez Canal.

Project Luminance | 475 feet, 7 inches

Delivered in 2024, Project Luminance (the real name is yet to be confirmed) is Lürssen’s newest entry on the list. Exterior designed by Espen Øino, the yacht has a raked bow, a contrasting paint job in a dark blue hull and silver superstructure and a whopping 8,999 gross tons of interior volume. Few details are yet known about the gigayacht owned by Ukrainian mining and financial services mogul Rinat Akhmetov, including the interior by Francois Zuretti, but aerial shots reveal twin helicopter pads—one on the foredeck and another high up aft—a large beach club, and an infinity pool, with a private spa pool area on the foredeck.

A | 468 feet, 5 inches

Undoubtedly one of the most visionary projects ever delivered by German shipyard Nobiskrug, the Philippe Starck-designed A is a wild fantasy of the future. Delivered in 2017, the futuristic look of  sailing yacht  A includes smooth, silver-metallic surfaces and windows that look nearly invisible, a 26-foot draft, three composite masts that bend slightly, and a deck hidden by high bulwarks. The Philippe Starck–design is a wild fantasy yacht of the future. The 468-foot sailing yacht is a technical victory for Nobiskrug , which developed composite fashion plates to create the unusual shapes without compromising any strength or fluidity. It has the tallest freestanding composite masts on any sailing vessel, a diesel-electric propulsion system, and state-of-the-art navigation systems. The boat also reportedly has an underwater viewing platform in the keel. Starck’s traditional interior features dark wood, copper accents, and cozy patterned carpets. The split-deck main salon is divided into zoned seating areas with integrated bookshelves. A remains today the world’s largest sailing yacht six years after its launch, though many argue it is better defined as a sail-assisted yacht.

Nord | 466 feet

Nord was announced in 2015 but didn’t hit the water until its 2020 sea trials in the Baltic Sea. The 466-foot yacht features interior design by Italian studio Nuvolari Lenard and was Lürssen’s first yacht launched from its floating shed at its facility in Vegasack. Boasting top-tier amenities, the yacht includes a sports and diving center on the lower deck, multiple tenders ranging in size up to 50 feet and a large swimming pool. The two helipads support the yacht’s long-range cruising capabilities for autonomous exploration, and a retractable hangar means a helicopter can slide neatly into the superstructure for storage when not in use. A generous 20 staterooms accommodate 36 guests across six decks, while a sleek aft-sloping superstructure gives Nord an individual profile on the water.

Yas | 462 feet, 6 inches

As a converted yacht, Yas is one of the most interesting vessels on this list. The dolphin-like exterior was originally a former Dutch Navy frigate that launched in 1978 and eventually sold to the navy of the United Arab Emirates, where it was renamed Al Emirat . The yacht underwent its dramatic conversion in a facility in Abu Dhabi’s main port, emerging as a gleaming superyacht in 2011, with one of the most interesting profiles on the water. It was eventually delivered four years later. Reportedly owned by Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed al Nahyan, half-brother of the president of the UAE, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the design by Paris-based Pierrejean Vision is defined by massive glass surfaces. Yas can accommodate 60 guests and 58 crew members. Mated to a steel hull, the superstructure is the largest composite edifice ever built.

Solaris | 459 feet, 3 inches

Owned by Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, the 476-foot  Solaris  was one of the largest yachts to deliver in 2021. Last refit in 2022 at MB92 in Barcelona, the vast, highly private explorer is built by German shipyard Lloyd Werft and features a displacement steel hull with bulbous bow and steel superstructure with teak decks. The eight-deck exterior by Australian designer Marc Newson houses a large helipad, sundeck, spacious beach club aft and 21,527 square feet of glass, the largest panes to ever be built into a yacht. Lloyd Werft also built the Russian billionaire’s previous explorer yacht Luna , which he reportedly sold for $360 million to his close friend Farkhad Akhmedov in 2014.

Ocean Victory | 459 feet, 3 inches

The largest motoryacht ever built in Italy, Fincantieri’s Ocean Victory is owned by Russian billionaire Viktor Rashnikov, who was sanctioned in 2022. The seven-deck exterior by Espen Øino includes two helideck platforms and a hangar belowdecks, as well as exceptional outdoor social areas and a floodable tender dock. Ocean Victory has accommodations for 28 guests as well as quarters for 56 crew. The interior by Alberto Pinto remains a secret, aside from the yacht’s six pools, a 3,300-square-foot spa, and an underwater observation room.

Scheherazade | 459 feet, 3 inches

The 459.3-foot, Lürssen-built Scheherazade (formerly known as Project Lightning) was delivered in June 2020, with exterior design by Espen Øino and interior design by Francois Zuretti. Two helipads, forward and aft, and a large beach club aft are visible from aerial photographs, but aside from the yacht’s reported seven-foot beam, 40 crew and unique drone-crashing system for privacy, further details have not yet been released. The reason may lie with the yacht’s unofficial owner, believed to be Russian president Vladimir Putin. In May 2022, Italian authorities froze Scheherazade in the port of Marina di Carrara following an investigation conducted by Italian financial police who found the ship’s beneficial owner had “significant economic and business ties” to high-ranking Russian government officials, though the results of the investigation to date remain inconclusive.

Al Salamah | 456 feet

When Lürssen launched Al Salamah in 1999, it was the third-largest yacht in the world. Its number 20 ranking shows how much has changed in the last 20 years. Code-named MIPOS, or Mission Possible, the yacht was designed by Terence Disdale . Originally owned by Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, the yacht was put up for sale for $280 million in in 2013 before it was reportedly given to Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa as a gift. The large imposing exterior is primarily protected space, with an upper deck exposed to the elements. Al Salamah has staterooms for 40 guests, including two owner suites, 11 VIP staterooms, and eight twin cabins. The yacht can carry up to 96 crew and has a top speed of 22 knots. Al Salamah was last refitted in 2009.

Rising Sun | 454 feet, 1 inch

Designed by the original guru of yacht designers, Jon Bannenberg, Rising Sun was built by Lürssen for Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and is currently owned by billionaire David Geffen, who reportedly paid $590 million for the yacht. The yacht comes with a gym, a grand piano, multiple swimming pools, a beauty salon, and a spa with a sauna. Delivered in 2004 and last refit in 2022, the yacht’s exterior is defined by banks of windows across the superstructure. Rising Sun has 86,000 square feet of living space in 82 rooms. It can accommodate 18 guests in nine cabins, with the capacity to carry up to 46 crew. The interior by Seccombe Design includes a gym, cinema, and wine cellar, and the rear cockpit deck was designed as a basketball court. Geffen received global media backlash in 2020 for his “tone deaf” social-media posts that pictured himself on board his yacht during Covid-19 lockdown.

Flying Fox | 446 feet, 2 inches

The 446.2-foot  Flying Fox is arguably the most high-profile yacht on this list, primarily for being the largest yacht available on the charter market. In 2022, it was also singled out as “blocked property” by U.S. authorities in 2022 due to its previous management Imperials Yachts, which was on the US sanctions list. The yacht’s owner, however, Russian billionaire Dmitry Kamenshchik, is not sanctioned, so the yacht was turned over to him and returned to charter in 2024. Key features of the Espen Øino-designed exterior are a curvaceous dove-gray hull and a 3.7-foot swimming pool that runs athwartship on the main aft deck, the largest ever found on board a yacht. A two-decked spa also gives guests access to a cryosauna, hammam, and relaxation room with a fold-down balcony at sea level. Packed to the rafters with the latest amenities, the yacht holds a diving center, a decompression chamber, and two helipads. Flying Fox is PYC compliant and can accommodate 25 guests.

Savarona | 446 feet, 2 inches

Launched in 1931, and by far the largest and fastest private yacht of her day, Savarona was built for American heiress Emily Roebling Cadwalader and is easily identified by its two mustard-colored funnels. The yacht was eventually acquired by Turkey to be the presidential yacht of Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey. Jane’s Fighting Ships described the yacht in 1949 as “probably the most sumptuously fitted yacht afloat.”  Savarona was later converted to a training ship for the Turkish Navy and, in 1978, destroyed by fire. The yacht laid in tatters for 10 years. A Turkish businessman spent around $45 million refurbishing Savarona , commissioning Donald Starkey for the interior and replacing the original steam-turbine engines with modern Caterpillar diesels. Savarona became Turkey’s official presidential yacht again in 2014, accommodating up to 34 guests in 17 suites and carrying up to 48 crew. Amenities include a swimming pool, a Turkish bath, a 280-foot grand staircase, a movie theater and a library dedicated to Atatürk.

Crescent | 443 feet

Last refit in 2021, Espen Øino’s dark hull and tiered superstructure was one of the most exciting launches of 2018. Called Project Thunder internally at Lürssen, the custom-built yacht features cutouts along the hull sides that allow full ocean views from the saloon on the primary deck, as part of Crescent ’s distinctive curved superstructure. Its most noteworthy feature is the jaw-dropping bank of three-deck-high windows in the center of the yacht. This architectural feature serves as the centerpiece of a very compelling design. The yacht has accommodations for 18 guests in nine staterooms. Little is known about the François Zuretti-designed interior, other than Lürssen describing it as being “traditionally styled.” If it lives up to Crescent ’s brash exterior, the complete yacht promises to be an entirely groundbreaking design. In March 2022, Crescent was detained by Spain as property of Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, who is sanctioned in connection with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Serene | 439 feet, 3 inches

Serene  is the yacht that launched Fincantieri into the superyacht segment, and what a debut it was. The largest yacht ever launched in Italy when it was delivered in 2011 (surpassed three years later by Ocean Victory ), the Espen Øino seven-deck design features a long, sleek blue hull crowned by a white superstructure. Pascale Reymond of Reymond Langton Design created the 43,056-square-foot interior for a Russian owner, which includes a double height atrium with a piano lounge at the top and a vast open-plan main salon below. Sunken LEDs and bright pink and purple neon lights create a modern party vibe in the social areas, which contrast with the elaborate yet more traditional guest suites. A spiral staircase with intricate metal banisters soars through the heart of the yacht. The open stern area has a winter garden (enclosed glasshouse) that allows dining in all seasons. Serene also has two helipads and a hangar, a big swimming pool, and a tender garage large enough for a submarine.

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• Blohm + Voss
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To Boost Ocean Research, Some Scientists Are Turning to Superyachts

Demand for maritime research vessels outstrips supply, a gap that some “adventure” yacht owners are filling by donating free boat time.

The Lurssen Ahpo superyacht during the Discover Boating Miami International Boat Show in February. 

Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg

For almost two years, Robert Brewin collected data from the bow of a superyacht as it sailed pristine waters from the Caribbean Sea to the Antarctic Ocean.

The Archimedes , a 222-foot (68-meter) “adventure” yacht then owned by the late hedge funder James Simons, boasts a gym, a jacuzzi and an elevator. But between 2018 and 2020, Brewin was concerned only with the boat’s Sea-Bird Scientific Solar Tracking Aiming System, installed to measure light reflecting off of the water. A senior lecturer at the UK’s University of Exeter, Brewin and his colleagues were analyzing microplankton — microscopic organisms at the base of the marine food chain — by studying the ocean’s color. The Sea-Bird’s readouts helped them verify satellite imagery.

Chinese magnate with a red Lamborghini and superyacht convicted for bilking $1 billion from investors

Exiled Chinese tycoon Guo Wengui, whose crusade against the Communist Party attracted allies including Donald Trump associate Steve Bannon, was convicted for duping investors out of $1 billion to fund his luxury lifestyle.

After a trial in Manhattan that lasted almost two months, Guo was found guilty on Tuesday of fraud and racketeering conspiracy. Convicted on nine of the 12 counts against him, he faces as many as 20 years in prison on the most serious charges when he is sentenced on Nov. 19. 

Guo “brazenly operated several interrelated fraud schemes, all designed to fleece his loyal followers out of their hard-earned money so that Guo could spend his days in his 50,000-square-foot mansion, driving his $1 million Lamborghini, or lounging on his $37 million yacht,” Manhattan US Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement after the verdict.

A lawyer for Guo declined to comment, but Guo is almost certain to appeal the verdict.

Guo smiled at his lawyers as the jury walked out, hugged attorney Sabrina Shroff and shook the hands of other members of the defense team. The outspoken businessman, also known as Ho Wan Kwok or Miles Guo, was tried before jurors whose names were kept secret — an unusual move designed to shield them in a case that has drawn intense interest. 

Appealing to a huge online following, Guo raised money from investors for seemingly legitimate businesses but diverted the funds to spend on himself and his family. The trial involved weeks of testimony from investors drawn to Guo through his public critique of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as from luxury car dealers who sold him rare vehicles and a managing director at Kyle Bass’ hedge fund Hayman Capital Management, which ran a hedge fund that the government said Guo invested $100 million of the stolen funds in. 

Neither Bass, Hayman nor Bannon was accused of wrongdoing in the case.

Videos From His Superyacht

Guo amassed his social media following through videos recorded from his penthouse at the Sherry-Netherland hotel overlooking New York’s Central Park or from the deck of his 152-foot superyacht. Guo claimed his fortune came from his wealthy real estate developer family in China. But a portion of his wealth, federal prosecutors said, also came from stealing $1 billion through bogus investment opportunities he hawked online. 

The jury began its deliberations Thursday but was forced to start over with an alternate juror after a member of the panel admitted to Googling the name of a co-defendant, who is still at large. 

The defense urged the jurors not to let Guo’s expensive tastes cloud their judgment, claiming he flaunted his wealth as a form of protest against the Communist Party. 

The prosecution had its own framing. “Is Miles Guo a real political activist?” Assistant US Attorney Juliana Murray said Thursday during closing arguments. “I don’t know and I don’t care, because that’s not what this trial is about.”

Mysterious Background

The case explored Guo’s mysterious background, including fleeing persecution in China, his ties to Bannon and how he came to pour millions into Hayman Capital’s high-risk wager against the Hong Kong dollar. 

Bannon was on Guo’s yacht off the coast of Connecticut in 2020 when the political adviser was arrested on charges he conspired to siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars from a campaign to finance a wall on the US southern border. Trump pardoned Bannon just before leaving office.

In 2020, Guo transfered $100 million raised through an illicit stock offering in his GTV Media Group to the Hayman Hong Kong Opportunities Fund, which held a position that the country’s currency peg to the US dollar would collapse, according to prosecutors. Bannon introduced Guo and Bass, a longtime China skeptic. Bannon himself was paid $1 million as a consultant to GTV’s parent company Saraca Media Group, evidence presented at the trial showed. 

After Hayman received the investment, Bannon emailed Bass. 

‘Congrats on Miles Deal’

“Congrats on miles deal,” Bannon wrote, according to an email presented as evidence. “He thinks u r biggest superstar in finance.” 

A month later, the US Securities and Exchange Commission contacted Hayman to inquire about the source of the funds. When Bass asked Guo’s financial adviser for an explanation, he got no reply, evidence showed. By that point, close to $30 million had been lost in the unsuccessful currency wager. 

The remaining $70 million was eventually handed over to authorities.

Guo was acquitted on Tuesday of fraud related to the stock offering in GTV and of unlawful monetary transaction in connection with the $100 million transfer to the Hayman hedge fund.

$539 Million SEC Settlement

In 2021, three Guo-linked companies, including GTV, agreed to pay  $539 million  to settle the SEC’s investigation into unregistered stock offerings. 

According to prosecutors, other Guo scams involved an exclusive private members-only club with a minimum $10,000 buy-in, a crypto platform called the Himalaya Exchange and a farm loan program. 

The government alleged Guo also peeled off investor funds to spend on luxuries including a red Lamborghini, a $4 million Ferrari for his son and a $26 million New Jersey mansion.

The case is US v. Guo, 23-cr-00118, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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As a trafficker pursued dreams of soccer glory, investigators closed in

ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — The undercover agents ducked into a squat brick house in a residential neighborhood.

The building — secretly rented by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration — was now the headquarters of what had become one of Latin America’s most important drug-trafficking investigations. It was not going well.

The handful of American and Paraguayan agents had been assigned to find the man at the center of a new transnational drug cartel dispatching boatloads of cocaine to Europe. The agents had been sealed off from the rest of the police to avoid leaks. But after months of work, they still knew little about their target, except that he was dangerous and well-connected.

Then, one day in 2021, the agents got a tip. The man at the center of the new cartel was about to board a private jet at Silvio Pettirossi International Airport, just outside Asunción, the capital.

Read part one here:

This is the second of a two-part series. Click on this link to read the first part, “A double life: The cocaine kingpin who hid as a professional soccer player.”

As they watched the passengers, one of the men in line stood out. His tattoos matched the ones they had heard about on wiretaps of cartel members. When he was asked for his identification, the man took out a Bolivian passport. The agents were immediately sure the document was false. They searched his biometric data, and the name of an Uruguayan national popped up. Sebastián Marset.

“When we heard the name ‘Marset,’ we wondered: ‘Who is this guy?’” recalled a senior Paraguayan official. “The first thing we did was Google him and the first hit was this soccer player.”

The agents saw that their target had until recently been a midfielder on Deportivo Capiatá, a team that played not far from their rented office. Marset had used his wealth and power to fulfill a boyhood dream of playing professional soccer, even though his skills fell far short of the level required.

Word spread among high-level Paraguayan officials, some of them soccer fanatics, who wondered if they had unwittingly watched their target play.

“I couldn’t believe that at the center of this massive criminal organization, the leader was a failed soccer player,” said Cecilia Pérez Rivas, the justice minister.

Investigators said they didn’t just want to detain Marset at the airport, so they allowed him to board the plane; the goal was to build a case to dismantle his cartel. Over the subsequent months, Paraguayan agents began trailing him.

They followed him as he drove an armored Toyota Land Cruiser to Asunción’s La Galería shopping mall, where he met alleged Brazilian drug trafficker Marlon Santos Silva Beiño; in a white BMW to a pastry shop, where he met Alberto Koube Ayala, the Paraguayan businessman who investigators said was responsible for laundering some of Marset’s drug proceeds. Neither Beiño nor Ayala could be reached for comment.

They chronicled the way Marset created shell companies across Latin America’s private sector, paying for publicity in local media so the businesses appeared legitimate, investigation documents show. Marset touted his success as a music producer (“a legend of concert production,” said an article on an Ecuadorian news site) or the owner of a luxury car dealership (“quality service for every kind of vehicle,” said a Paraguayan auto magazine) or the benefactor of a martial arts studio called Team Force Training Center (its slogan: “To Fight Is to Live”).

Investigators started to feel as if they were chasing a Zelig-like figure who appeared to be in multiple places at the same time. They struggled to discern which of his businesses existed only on paper and which were real. They wondered what had become of his soccer career after he disappeared from Capiatá.

“He’s obviously very smart,” said one Paraguayan investigator. “And he’s also a sociopath.”

One day, two undercover agents followed a silver Lamborghini through the residential sprawl at the edge of Asunción. The agents drove an unmarked truck they had seized in a previous operation, keeping a distance from their target.

Over a two-way radio, they reported their coordinates back to headquarters, one agent recalled. They relayed what they were seeing: Marset had inexplicably detoured through the potholed roads of a no-name neighborhood.

Then the agents watched as he pulled up in front of a soccer stadium and turned off the engine.

One of the agents, clearly taken aback, picked up the radio to report the finding: “He found another team.”

Marset’s newest toy was a second-division team called Rubio Ñu. Its stadium was about 20 miles from Capiatá.

The team played in a middle-class neighborhood in Paraguay’s capital, full of die-hard but perpetually disappointed Rubio Ñu fans. Some had painted their homes in the team’s colors, green and white. Many were the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Rubio supporters. The stadium showed signs of decay. The grass on the field was patchy.

Fans traded rumors about the man in the Lamborghini. He arrived with a small group of men, all in their 20s and 30s, some with Uruguayan accents. Almost immediately, he started funneling money to the team.

“We were like, ‘What is going on here?’” said one neighbor, who lives across the street from the stadium and spoke on the condition of anonymity for security reasons. “A lot of people were scared. It was like a group of mafiosos had descended on us.”

Within a few weeks of Marset’s arrival, he hired a construction team to build a new locker room. This time, he practiced with the team, but didn’t play in games.

After practice, he deployed the same anodyne one-liners that he used in texts to the drug traffickers who worked for him:

“Always be one step ahead my bro,” he wrote.

Marset appointed his brother Diego Marset as an intermediary between his drug-trafficking organization and the team, investigators said. Diego went on a recruiting spree, adding 11 veteran players. He could not be reached for comment.

The agents realized that as Sebastián Marset moved between soccer teams, he was also playing with ways the sport could be used to turn illicit funds into clean cash. He was expanding, they wrote in a 500-page Paraguayan report, “the universe of soccer within his money laundering scheme.”

At Rubio Ñu, investigators noted, Marset’s focus was on buying and selling players — one of the oldest forms of laundering money through sport.

Officials at Rubio Ñu declined to comment.

It would later become clear what Marset had in mind, according to investigators: He identified a team in Europe with its own connections to transnational crime. He would sell his Paraguayan players there. Transferring Latin American players to middling European teams for inflated fees — fronted by the seller, not the buyer, or by recording fake transactions — has become an increasingly common way of laundering drug money, officials say.

“They buy a Colombian player from a very low-level soccer team and then take him to play in the Croatian Soccer League. But they sell him for 100 times or 200 times more than what he cost,” said a Colombian police official, referring to one case in which Albanian drug traffickers laundered money through soccer transfers, providing cash for the transaction.

By August 2021, the American and Paraguayan investigators were getting closer to arresting their target. They had come up with a name for their investigation, “A Ultranza,” which means “At All Costs.” It was already the biggest anti-narcotics investigation in Paraguay’s history. They had enough documentation to produce at least 50 indictments targeting Marset and his associates, investigators said.

Then in September 2021, Marset vanished again.

The Americans received fresh intelligence: He was no longer hiding in Paraguay. He had evaded the surveillance. This time, he had left the continent.

When the Uruguayan diplomat stepped through the high walls of Al Wathba prison, surrounded by the Emirati desert, he explained to guards that he had come for a consular visit with a new detainee from his country.

The guards asked for the prisoner’s name.

“Marset,” the diplomat said, before walking into the holding cell.

Marset was sleeping on the floor of the prison with a blanket, in solitary confinement, according to an Uruguayan diplomatic cable.

One of the world’s most elusive drug traffickers had finally been caught. But it hadn’t been for trafficking drugs. Marset was detained at the Dubai airport, where authorities said he had used a fake Paraguayan passport.

“He had finally slipped up,” said a Paraguayan official.

U.S. officials made a case to their Emirati counterparts: If they didn’t strictly enforce his detention until an arrest warrant could be issued by Paraguay, Marset would bribe or finagle his way out of custody.

They were right. From his prison cell, Marset began a campaign to obtain a new passport and secure his release, an effort later documented by Uruguayan and Paraguayan authorities. For reasons that remain unclear, Paraguay was unable or unwilling to issue an arrest warrant after learning of Marset’s detention.

The Uruguayan government, meanwhile, recognized Marset as a threat but also failed to prevent his release.

“A narco,” Uruguay’s chief consul, Pauline Davies, wrote of Marset in a WhatsApp message to the country’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Álvaro Ceriani, on Sept. 21. The message was part of a trove of documents collected by Uruguayan investigators and provided to The Washington Post.

“A very dangerous and heavy drug trafficker,” Guillermo Maciel, Uruguay’s deputy interior minister, wrote to Carolina Ache, the country’s deputy foreign minister on Nov. 3.

Marset hired high-profile lawyers who arranged meetings with senior Uruguayan officials, documents show. The team was well-connected: Marset’s top legal adviser, Alejandro Balbi, was the president of Nacional, one of the country’s most famous soccer clubs. Balbi declined to comment.

Marset applied for a new Uruguayan passport to be delivered to him in Dubai.

By November, despite the warnings about the danger he posed, the new passport was being processed. Neither Uruguay’s Foreign Ministry nor its Interior Ministry, which grants passports, intervened, according to Uruguayan investigators.

While he waited to be released, using a phone he had obtained, Marset sought revenge.

He allegedly ordered gunmen to kill Mauricio Schwartzman, the man responsible for securing the Paraguayan passport that had landed Marset in prison, investigators said. Two men using a 5.56-caliber rifle and a 9mm pistol confronted Schwartzman in front of his luxury home in Asunción and shot him dead.

Paraguayan investigators later heard over their wiretaps that the gunmen had been ordered to carry out the hit by the “big boss” of a cocaine-trafficking organization, apparently alluding to Marset.

“According to the big boss, it was [Schwartzman’s] fault that the passport had problems,” the associate said.

A high-profile Paraguayan prosecutor, Marcelo Pecci, was assigned to investigate the case. Pecci later told journalists he believed Schwartzman could have been executed by one of the people targeted in the joint U.S.-Paraguayan investigation into Marset’s cartel.

Less than a year later, in May 2022, Pecci would be killed on his honeymoon at a private beach resort in Colombia. Just hours earlier, his wife had announced that she was pregnant. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, said Marset was responsible for the killing. (Marset subsequently denied any role in the killing when questioned by an Uruguayan journalist.)

But long before that slaying, with Marset detained, investigators had another question to answer: What was Marset doing in Dubai in the first place?

They would later find photos of him dressed as a sheikh with a hawk on his biceps, at the top of the Burj Khalifa skyscraper with his wife, on a desert excursion with alleged Bolivian drug trafficker Erland Ivar García López. Marset owned more than $18 million worth of real estate in Dubai, according to property records obtained by research group C4ADS and shared by news organizations E24 and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

When investigators obtained Marset’s flight records, they learned that Dubai hadn’t been his final destination. He had been planning a trip to Greece.

“We started to ask: ‘What business did he have in Greece?’” said a Paraguayan investigator.

Trikala F.C. is a team based in central Greece, 200 miles northwest of Athens, a longtime fixture in the Greek Super League 2. Its low-slung stadium, where only a handful of fans sit during home games, is a short walk from an Early Bronze Age acropolis.

The team’s fan base had diminished not only as Trikala continued to lose but as its links to organized crime and match-fixing were exposed. Earlier this year, its former owner, Christos Gialia, was shot more than a dozen times with a Kalashnikov rifle and burned in his car in a mafia-style killing. He had previously been arrested on charges of arms and drug trafficking. The team’s president, Sakis Karatzounis, was convicted of drug trafficking in 2017 after being found in possession of 20 kilos of cocaine, and served four years in prison.

Trikala F.C. sometimes recruited foreign coaches, who were shocked by what they learned. In 2021, the team hired David Magrone, a former member of the coaching staff at Tottenham Hotspur in England’s Premier League. Magrone left after 10 days, telling soccer journalists that he was scandalized.

“It’s the most amateurish and unprofessional environment I’ve ever stepped into,” Magrone said in an interview with FTBL, an Australian soccer website. “It was like the wild wild West and I don’t say that lightly.”

Magrone said he was aware of the team’s possible involvement in match fixing. But Trikala’s illicit activities appeared to run deeper.

A few weeks after Magrone’s departure, in September 2021, an SUV arrived at Trikala’s stadium carrying four Paraguayan players and several coaches and trainers. One coach, Manuel Caceres, immediately started paying the team’s Greek employees in cash, according to Trikala players, and began talking about plans to buy the team. Caceres could not be reached for comment.

The players and staff were baffled, even as they relished the sudden wave of new resources.

“Why did they come from Paraguay to invest on the other side of the Atlantic, in Trikala? It was an honor for us, okay, but isn’t it weird?” Zissis Katsandonis, the team manager, said in an interview. “But whatever the team asked them for, we got. Clothes, equipment. Everything was ordered right away. All paid for.”

The Paraguayans would distribute wads of cash in the locker room, said Giorgos Panagiotou, Trikala’s general secretary. “Come, guys, to the changing rooms and take it,” he recalled them saying.

What the Greek players and officials didn’t know was that the Paraguayans had been dispatched by Sebastián Marset, who was en route to Greece when he was detained in Dubai. After his arrest, according to a wiretapped conversation, he had sent his associates instead.

Two of the players and Caceres, the coach, had come from Marset’s last Paraguayan team, Rubio Ñu. They were among the men Marset’s associates had been grooming, promising cash if they played well. Marset, investigators learned, offered each of them $200,000 if they were willing to be transferred to an obscure Greek team. They accepted.

Paraguayan investigators say Marset was hoping to use Trikala to launder cash and create a foothold in Greece to expand his drug-trafficking network. The Greek anti-narcotics police said they were unaware of Marset’s connection to the team, perhaps because of how quickly it dissolved. With his detention in Dubai, Marset’s Trikala scheme fell apart, investigators said.

At the end of 2021, the Paraguayan players and coaches left as abruptly as they had arrived.

“At least it was sudden for me. I didn’t know anything,” said Katsandonis, the manager. “They all left Trikala before Christmas. I don’t know where they went after that.”

Two of the players, apparently broke, returned to Paraguay on a government repatriation flight, accompanied by migrant deportees.

On Jan. 10, 2022, Interpol wrote a message to Uruguay’s Foreign Ministry: “We would appreciate if you could provide us with an update on its situation and details of where [Marset] is currently.”

Both the U.S. and Paraguayan investigators had assumed their target was still detained in Dubai.

But the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry responded two days later: “The Consulate delivered the passport to the holder and we have not had any information about the citizen since then.”

Marset was a free man.

“With the influence of his wealth and connections, he won,” said a U.S. official.

About a month later, on Feb. 22, Paraguayan authorities carried out Operation A Ultranza, based on their multiyear investigation into Marset’s organization. Twenty-four of his associates were arrested, most of them on drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges. Police raided luxury homes and airplane hangars. They seized nine private jets, 4,000 head of cattle, 13 tractors and three yachts — in total, more than $100 million in assets.

Erico Galeano, the Paraguayan senator whose soccer team had welcomed Marset, was accused of money laundering. But the government’s support for Galeano was clear: Weeks after his arrest, he was invited to a small soccer game at the president’s residence.

On March 7, Interpol issued an international arrest warrant in Marset’s name. But by then, he was once again a fugitive. News broke in Uruguay about how he had managed to secure a new passport from a prison in Dubai.

The fallout was almost immediate. First the foreign minister resigned. Then the interior minister and one of his chief advisers. But Uruguay’s president, Luis Lacalle Pou, said the problem was Uruguay’s laws, not corruption within his government.

“Do we like that a drug trafficker has a passport? Of course not,” Lacalle Pou said at a news conference. “But that is the current law.”

The phone buzzed in the newsroom of Channel 4, one of Uruguay’s most popular broadcasters. It was a text message from a South African number.

The sender introduced himself as Sebastián Marset.

It was August 2022, months after his release from the Dubai prison. Marset sent a video message to reporters, who aired it on the nightly broadcast of “Telenoche.” He was fuming about the charges against him and his associates.

“They have no proof of anything of what they say. Nothing,” he said in the video, in which he wears sunglasses and a face mask.

U.S., Paraguayan and Uruguayan officials were searching for him once again. The drugs flowing from Bolivia to Uruguay and on to Europe had increased. Investigators believed he was still running the operation, from wherever he was.

Then the tip arrived.

Marset was in Bolivia. But he wasn’t just hiding there.

He was playing for another professional soccer team.

The players of the Leones del Torno, a team in a second-tier Bolivian league, were on their 20th and final 100-yard sprint.

Carlos Villegas, a lanky 25-year-old Colombian forward, finished first. He put his hands on his knees and turned, he recalled in an interview, to watch his teammates trundle across the line, struggling in the Bolivian heat. It was May 2023.

As always, among the slowest players was a handsome, tattooed Brazilian named Luis Amorim.

There was something odd about Amorim, Villegas thought. He was out of shape and sluggish on the field. But he was always impeccably dressed and drove a rotation of shiny SUVs — Land Cruisers and BMWs — across Santa Cruz, where the Leones had recently moved.

While Villegas struggled to scrape by on his $500-a-month salary, painting homes to make extra cash, Amorim was seemingly flush. Villegas needed to know: How had his teammate found financial success while languishing in the lower rungs of professional soccer? He decided he would ask.

After practice, Villegas sidled up to Amorim on a bench next to the field.

“How did you do it, man?”

Amorim responded passionately, but obliquely — in surprisingly perfect Spanish for a Brazilian.

“It’s all about work. You need to work and work and work. You can’t ever give up,” Villegas recalled Amorim saying.

Villegas walked away from the conversation feeling inspired and a little confused.

“He never told me what he did to make the money,” Villegas later said in an interview. “And when I found out, it was a shock.”

Amorim was a pseudonym.

Marset had arrived in Santa Cruz — Bolivia’s financial capital — in late 2022, renovating a mansion in the center of the city, installing security cameras near the front entrance. He launched himself into the city’s elite circles. He spent time with a former Miss Bolivia and her husband. He sponsored events for Carnival, including an exhibition soccer game with powerful business executives. And most notably, he purchased the Leones del Torno, a team that played in the small town of El Torno, an hour outside the city.

Marset moved the team to Santa Cruz. He built a cutting-edge athletic training complex with a synthetic turf field at the end of a dirt road. He hired a former star player from the national team, Gualberto Mojica, to coach the team. And once again, he forced his way onto the starting lineup.

With law enforcement from across the Western Hemisphere looking for him, Marset had chosen not to hide in a remote outpost. He had come to Bolivia’s largest city — known as a sanctuary for drug proceeds, investigators say — certain that he could bribe authorities not to capture him.

For over a year, Marset appeared to be right; he expanded his real estate empire in Santa Cruz, either unnoticed or ignored.

On the soccer field, Marset wore the number 23, David Beckham’s number at Real Madrid and Galaxy. The name on the back of his blue jersey was only “Luis.” His skills had not improved.

“He wasn’t good,” said an Uruguayan player on the Leones, Lucas Casavieja.

“When I passed him the ball, a lot of the time he missed it,” said Villegas. “I got angry with him, like, ‘What are you doing?’”

In May 2023, Bolivian authorities got a call from the Paraguayan anti-narcotics police. The Paraguayans had tracked down Marset in Santa Cruz, and they needed the Bolivians to act.

The Bolivian police say they began surveilling Marset’s mansion. They flew a drone overhead. They posted officers around his tony neighborhood. Marset was hiding with his wife and four children, who were also using false names. He had managed to enroll one of his sons in the revered training program of Blooming, a soccer team in Bolivia’s first division.

Eventually, police held a planning session to announce the operation, dubbed “Leon 23” after Marset’s team and number. They planned to take down Marset’s entire network.

Dozens of officers got to his house on the morning of July 29, forcing their way inside. But Marset and his family were gone.

A manhunt commenced: 3,000 Bolivian police officers were dispatched. They placed 158 checkpoints across the country to keep Marset from escaping.

The police eventually arrested 39 people, including the Leones del Torno coach, two of Marset’s teammates and the team’s grounds manager. They seized the team’s soccer field, 35 properties, nine aircraft, 77 cars, 81 weapons and 1,315 head of livestock and poultry — a total of $27 million in assets.

Leones del Torno were suspended from Bolivia’s soccer federation. Former team officials could not be reached for comment.

Officials and neighbors in Santa Cruz would later tell The Post that Marset had fled days before the operation began. Neighbors reported seeing people loading trucks outside Marset’s home.

“The operation needed to be earlier,” Jhonny Aguilera, Bolivia’s deputy interior minister and former national police chief, said in an interview. “We know that in hindsight.”

Marset’s teammates and coach were charged with “criminal association.” Their interrogation interviews yielded little: He was merely “another player,” they said. “An investor” or a “businessman.”

But Bolivian officials said they were able to link Marset’s attraction to the Leones to two data points — his obsession with soccer and the more practical question of what to do with his drug proceeds.

“The objective was obviously to launder money,” Aguilera said of Marset’s investment in Leones del Torno.

A few weeks after Marset’s disappearance, Jessica Echeverría, a lawyer in Santa Cruz with a large following on social media, received a message from a number she didn’t recognize.

When she opened it, there was a video with Marset’s face in the center of the frame. Echevarría pressed play. She heard Marset explain how he had been tipped off about the Bolivia operation.

“Thanks to the help of the director of the anti-narcotics police, I managed to leave,” Marset said in the video. “He told me that the minister had already issued an arrest warrant against me.”

A few weeks later, he sent out another video to local reporters. It was recorded from inside a car.

“I am too smart for you,” he said, taunting the Bolivian police. “It’s not to say that you are very stupid; it sounds a little better to say that I am just smarter.”

He threatened to reveal the corrupt Bolivian officials who had allowed him to live freely and escape unharmed: “If I open my mouth, it gets complicated.”

The question of where Marset was hiding became a parlor game among Latin American officials. At least a few starry-eyed fans also waited for him to reemerge, hoping he could be lured by one of his weaknesses.

“Between soccer and lovers, I am gripped by the hope that Don Marset will return,” crooned Bolivian singer Belén Ortiz in her song “King of the South.”

And then, in November, Marset gave a television interview.

An Uruguayan television anchor, Patricia Martín, said she had taken two helicopters to meet him — the first to a place that was “half jungle” and the second to a house in a clearing. Marset opened the door, she said; a soccer game was playing on the living room television. He wore a $1,100 Louis Vuitton green sweater and a gold watch and spoke vaguely about his ability to elude capture.

“I have people to do what I need to do,” he said .

Marset’s lawyer, Santiago Moratorio, who helped arrange the television appearance, wouldn’t say where it took place, or offer any hints about his client’s newest hiding place.

On Wednesday, after months of radio silence, Marset’s wife, Gianina García Troche, was detained at the Madrid airport in a joint operation of Interpol and the Spanish government. She had flown to Spain from Dubai, Uruguayan and Paraguayan officials said.

Moratorio said she wasn’t detained and insisted that she had turned herself in. “She was tired of running from a crime she didn’t commit,” he said.

Marset remains at large, the target of an ongoing manhunt, one of the most extensive in recent South American history.

Moratorio did share one detail from the visit he made with the journalist to Marset’s undisclosed location.

Before the television interview was recorded, Moratorio said, Marset issued one more order: Let’s play some soccer. His visitors, guards and associates formed two teams and the game kicked off.

About this story

Design and development by Kathleen Rudell-Brooks and Yutao Chen. Editing by Peter Finn, Reem Akkad, Jennifer Samuel and Joseph Moore. Video editing by Jon Gerberg. Research by Cate Brown. Copy editing by Anne Kenderdine and Martha Murdock.

Lucas Silva in Montevideo, Uruguay; Aldo Benítez in Asunción; Elinda Labropoulou in Athens; Yiannis Tsakarisianos in Trikala, Greece; Samantha Schmidt in Bogotá, Colombia; and Fernando Durán Arancibia in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, contributed to this report.

Credits for top illustration: Illustrations by Kathleen Rudell Brooks/The Washington Post; Interior Ministry of Uruguay; Bolivian national police; Paraguayan investigators; Uruguay national police; iStock; Video: Sebastián Marset; Cruceña Soccer Association; TikTok/@ktm_paxor; Bolivian national police.

The Washington Post reviewed property records from the Dubai Land Department, as well as publicly owned utility companies, to confirm that Marset owned property in the United Arab Emirates. The data was obtained by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that researches international crime and conflict, and shared with the Norwegian financial outlet E24 and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which coordinated an investigative project with dozens of media outlets around the world. You can learn more about the collaboration at #DubaiUnlocked .

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