A long-simmering tax scandal tied to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s vast superyacht fleet reached a new phase this week, as a Cypriot court opened proceedings against a dissolved management company accused of evading tens of millions of euro’s in taxes. The case shines an unflattering light on how the wealthy have used offshore structures and secretive corporate arrangements to shield luxury assets – and how Cyprus, long a hub for Russian-linked financial activities, is struggling to reckon with its offshore legacy.

The Limassol District Court convened the first hearing on October 9 in the criminal tax case against BOYM – Blue Ocean Management Limited, a Cyprus-registered company once beneficially owned by Abramovich through a complex trust structure. The firm, along with several of its former directors, faces accusations of failing to pay over €26 million in taxes and accrued interest tied to superyachts once managed for Abramovich’s personal use.

Three former Blue Ocean directors – Maria Damianou, Ioanna Ilia, and Neil Wade – were named in the indictment. However, only two appeared through legal counsel. The third, Wade, a British national, could not be located, and Cypriot authorities have been unable to serve him an indictment. Neither Blue Ocean nor Meritservus Secretaries Limited, a company that provided administrative services to Blue Ocean and is also facing charges, sent legal representatives to the initial hearing.

The case is the culmination of a tax dispute that began more than a decade ago. In the early 2010s, Cypriot tax authorities issued Blue Ocean with a €14 million bill for unpaid VAT related to its management of luxury yachts operating within the European Union. Blue Ocean challenged the assessment, launching a series of appeals that dragged on for years. But after the Cyprus Supreme Court dismissed the company’s final appeal in 2023, the total owed had ballooned to more than €26 million due to accrued interest and penalties.

Following that decision, Blue Ocean was dissolved – but was reinstated by court order in June 2025 after Cyprus’s tax commissioner sought to pursue the company’s unpaid debts. The reinstatement came shortly after a major exposé by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (

© Blitz