Man in stolen luxury yacht leads authorities on brief chase in Florida

By John Iz & Ari Hait

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    HOBE SOUND, Florida (WPBF) — In a crime the Martin County Sheriff called “bizarre,” a Russian national was arrested Monday evening and charged with stealing a multimillion-dollar yacht from a marina in Jupiter.

“This is a first for me and a first for the Sheriff’s Office that I’m aware of where we had a situation like this,” said Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek.

Budensiek said his office received a call around 4 p.m. from the dockmaster at Blowing Rocks Marina stating that someone had stolen a 68-foot, three-story yacht and was heading north on the water.

“Because it’s such an unbelievable story, we started reaching out and trying to find out if this is a repo deal or if there was somebody was allowed to use this vessel,” he said.

Once they confirmed that there were no legitimate reasons for the yacht to be taken, investigators then started working out how they could stop it.

Deputies piled into multiple boats and began to chase the yacht, but the Sheriff’s boats are much smaller, and deputies didn’t know who they were dealing with on that yacht.

“They’re lower. They’re looking up. They can’t tell what they’re looking at,” Budensiek said. “And had he had the firepower, he could have caused problems for our deputies.”

Fortunately, no shots were fired.

Budensiek said the suspect did not have a weapon.

Deputies were eventually able to get on one side of the yacht and overpower it.

“They were bowing to the side of that vessel and just shoved him as he was trying to get forward momentum. They just shoved him up into the mangroves,” Budensiek said. “They grounded him to where he could not move forward anymore.”

It took a few minutes after that, but the man on board surrendered.

The sheriff identified him as a Russian national named Nikolai Vilkov.

Budensiek said they’re still trying to figure out what he planned to do with a stolen yacht.

“We’re investigating the fact that it’s part of a larger organization,” he said. “You know, a Russian coming into South Martin County and stealing a 68-foot, $2,500,000 yacht is just not something that you see.”

Homeland Security is also a part of this investigation.

Budensiek said they brought in a Russian interpreter to deal with any language barrier.

Investigators did not say if Vilkov answered any questions.

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