The 19-year-old Florida college student who tracked Elon Musk’s private jet flights and then expanded it to fly Russian oligarchs is now studying the mega-yachts of Russian billionaires.
Jack Sweeney, a freshman at the University of Central Florida, started with placement of a list of some yachts on Twitter and noted that tracking is not “automated” yet.
Wealthy, Kremlin-backed Russians are trying to hide their superyachts amid U.S. and other allied sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
President Joe Biden specifically named the yachts when he warned oligarchs backing Russian President Vladimir Putin that sanctions were imminent.
“We are teaming up with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets,” Biden told the oligarchs in his State of the Union address last week. “We’re coming for your unholy acquisitions.”
The tracking of Sweeney’s yacht comes at a critical moment.
The Associated Press reported on Saturday that it was tracking the movements of about 56 superyachts (more than 79 feet long) believed to be owned by “pro-Kremlin” Russian oligarchs.
Using online tracking services VesselFinder and MarineTraffic, the AP found that more than a dozen ships were bound for or arrived at remote ports in small countries, possibly beyond the reach of Western sanctions. Several others mysteriously darkened.
However, some large yachts were captured. French authorities, for example, seized the $120 million 289-foot Amore Vero superyacht last week from the Mediterranean resort town of La Ciotat, even as the crew struggled to make a quick sail, AP reported.
The yacht is believed to belong to Igor Sechin, a Putin ally who runs the Russian oil giant Rosneft.
New yacht tracker Sweeney first came to the spotlight in January when he was featured in a tech post called “Protocol” to track Musk’s flights and post what he found on his Twitter account. @ElonJet.
When Musk asked him in a tweet to stop it because it was a “security risk,” Sweeney replied that he has every right to track Musk’s flights because he uses public data.
He later said he would stop if Musk paid him $50,000 (Musk reportedly offered $5,000). Sweeney’s account is still tracking Musk’s flights.
Then Sweeney began tracking private jets of Russian oligarchs in response to several requests to do so after the invasion of Ukraine. Sweeney found that planes were flying daily despite financial sanctions and airspace restrictions imposed on Russia by the United States and Ukraine’s other allies.
Sweeney tracks flights using public data from the ADS-B Exchange. It is not yet clear what he will use to hunt the oligarchs’ yachts.