The Great Yacht Swap: Inside Mauerberger’s Escape to the Seychelles

Welcome to Whale Hunting, where we follow the money behind some of the world’s most brazen financial crimes and expose the networks of people who enable them.

Benjamin Mauerberger is gone. And so is his yacht.

In the weeks before a Thai court ordered the seizure of 12 billion baht ($340 million) in assets connected to his money laundering empire, the South African fugitive executed one of the most audacious maritime deceptions we’ve ever documented. He sold his super yachts to shell companies, fired the world’s most prestigious yacht manager, and disappeared into the Indian Ocean.

Multiple sources have confirmed to Whale Hunting that Mauerberger was aboard the Wanderlust, his 85.3-meter expedition yacht, as recently as the past few days. The vessel’s transponder has been switched off intermittently over the past month, as Mauerberger seeks to sow confusion as to his location.

But we have found him.

This is the latest in Whale Hunting’s long-running investigation into Benjamin Mauerberger and the $1.5 billion Chinese-Cambodian money laundering network he helped build. If you’re new here, start with the full story of how a single private jet led us to a criminal empire, or read our original investigation exposing the network. For the yacht backstory, see The Super Yachts of a Global Criminal.

Recent developments have accelerated rapidly. In October, Mauerberger fled Thailand for Dubai. In February, we revealed the elite fixers — a Swiss attorney and a Sotheby’s CEO — who enabled Mauerberger’s Gulf lifestyle. In early March, Mauerberger was named by Thailand's Central Investigation Bureau as a wanted man under a criminal arrest warrant for fraud and money laundering. Thailand has issued an Interpol Red Notice for his arrest. We published how he became embedded in Dubai’s most exclusive address through the Aman hotel group, and this week, Singapore police moved against the network. Now, Mauerberger has fled Dubai entirely.

More below (free!).

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