The former Scheherazade crew member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a nondisclosure agreement that workers on the ship signed, had never heard of Khudainatov and said it was openly discussed onboard that the Scheherazade’s real owner was Putin. Soon after The New York Times first wrote about the Scheherazade in early March, US officials said the yacht had ties to Putin, without offering specifics.

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A team of journalists working for jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny obtained a list of crew members and found that many of them were employees of the Russian agency that guards Putin.

A spokesperson for Italy’s financial police, which has been leading the national and international inquiry into the Scheherazade’s ownership, said that, should the vessel leave before their investigation concluded, there would be nothing that authorities could do to stop it.

Three port workers said that authorities appeared to be keeping an eye on the yacht, which has been adjacent to a police station and the Coast Guard while in dry dock; a police helicopter makes daily fly-bys, they said. The workers, who were not authorised to speak to the press, asked that their names not be disclosed.

A retired shipyard employee, Roberto Franchi, said that if the Scheherazade “is floating, it can move relatively quickly.”

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It is not clear where the ship would go, but the movements of Russian-owned superyachts that have successfully dodged US, European Union or British sanctions offer some possibilities. Two vessels that belong to billionaire Roman Abramovich, who faces British and EU sanctions, have been in Turkish waters for weeks. Others have loitered in the Maldives, an island nation in the Indian Ocean.

The Nord, owned by sanctioned billionaire Alexei Mordashov, went much farther afield, arriving at the Russian Pacific port of Vladivostok at the end of March, according to data from Marine Traffic, which tracks vessels.

Those superyachts escaped the fate of the Amadea and a growing list of others, including Sailing Yacht A, owned by billionaire Andrey Melnichenko and impounded by the Italian police in March; and the Crescent, sister ship of the Scheherazade, impounded in Spain. Reuters, citing a person in the Spanish police, reported that the Crescent was believed to belong to Sechin.

Here in Marina di Carrara, port workers and other people with access to the shipyard saw a flurry of activity by the Scheherazade’s crew: removing the white plastic screens that protected the decks during the repairs, cleaning the ship, loading supplies. Last week, they said, fuel trucks filled the vessel’s enormous tanks, while crew members carefully moved wrapped cases onboard.

As the sun set on Tuesday, a young couple had their aperitivo drinks at a bar overlooking the shipyard.

“Look, Putin’s yacht is still here,” Massimo Giovi, a 25-year old student, joked. “If that goes, it will change the skyline here.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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