Kazakh-Israeli Industrialist Avoids ‘Sex Yacht’ Arrest

By Debra Nussbaum Cohen October 11, 2010

Alexsander Mashkevich has escaped legal action in connection with the Turkish sex yacht incident late last month, according to this JTA article.

According to this article, Turkish authorities followed the yacht for months before boarding it late last month. “Thirteen girls, including two minors, from Russia and Ukraine were detained along with several men from Central Asia.”

One of those men was Mashkevich. The industrialist holds citizenship in both his native Kazakhstan and in Israel.

According to this Israel21c article, he is the fifth-richest Israeli citizen.

Mashkevich is also, it seems, a major philanthropist, according to his bio on the website of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, a regional branch of the World Jewish Congress.

The yacht incident isn’t the industrialist’s first brush with the law. According to this JTA story,:

In 1999, Mashkevich’s name appeared in media reports in the West in connection with an international money-laundering scandal when authorities in Belgium pressed charges against him and some of his business partners. Mashkevich has denied the allegations as baseless, saying the scandal was created by some top Kazakh officials irritated by his growing influence in order to force Mashkevich leave the country. Mashkevich said only Belgian judicial formalities have prevented it from being closed. Some observers believe he is apparently trying to overcome this somewhat controversial international image by playing an increasingly active role as a Jewish leader.

According to the JTA story, the statement from the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress said that Mashkevich was on a “business cruise on a yacht with several friends and colleagues” when “the boat was routinely checked by the Coast Guard.”

Mashkevich was never implicated in wrongdoing, and claims to the contrary are “false and provocational,” the statement said.

Debra Nussbaum Cohen is an award-winning journalist and the author of Celebrating Your New Jewish Daughter: Creating Jewish Ways to Welcome Baby Girls into the Covenant. Follow her on Instagram @debranc or email her at dncnews@icloud.com.

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