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Superyachts stranded in Barcelona and Gulf Streams grounded in Essendon: Travel bans hit Australia's mega rich as their pleasure crafts and jets gather dust – and all the money in the world can't buy them freedom

• Ongoing COVID-19 travel bans are stopping all people from flying overseas 
• Rich Australians are cannot use their private jets or yachts stranded overseas
• Billionaire Lindsay Fox is cut off from his $90mil superyacht stuck in Barcelona
• He and Max Beck also have private jets, which are gathering dust in their airport 
• John Gandel own the world's largest business jet, which hasn't flown for months
• Meanwhile, James Packer has been lounging on his $100mil yacht in Mexico 
• The billionaire is enjoying the Cabo summer since he left before the travel ban 
• Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19

By Shive Prema For Daily Mail Australia

Published: 03:18 EDT, 19 June 2020 | Updated: 03:18 EDT, 19 June 2020

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Australia's one-percenters are unable to use their superyachts and private jets due to ongoing coronavirus travel bans. 

Lindsay Fox, who runs logistics giant Linfox, is completely cut off from his 58-metre superyacht called Volpini 2, which is currently stranded in Barcelona, Spain . 

Premier Investments chairman Solomon Lew is also unable to enjoy his 54-metre yacht Maridome while its moored in the Catalan port.   

Fox and property development mogul Max Beck both own private jets, which are currently grounded at Essendon Fields Airport - an airport they jointly own. 

Property developer John Gandel owns the world's largest business jet, the Bombardier Global Express 7500, which is also gathering dust in a hangar. 

Only James Packer is able to enjoy his $200million luxury superyacht in Mexico's   Cabo San Lucas as he has been spending COVID-19 lockdown there.  

The 58-metre long superyacht called Volpini 2, which is owned by Lindsay Fox, who runs logistics giant Linfox

Fox and his wife Paula. The cashed-up couple have not been able to leave Australia due to COVID-19 pandemic due to travel bans - meaning their yacht is stranded in Barcelona 

In sunny Barcelona, Fox's AU $90 million yacht Volpini 2 is docked in the port and has been waiting months for its next voyage. 

The spacious yacht can fit 12 guests across six rooms and and 13 crew members in seven cabins and can reach speeds of up to 15.5 knots. 

Premier Investments chairman Lew is in a similar position, with his luxury $43 million seafarer Maridome also docked in the Catalan capital.  

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The 54-metre long vessel can fit 10 guests in five cabins and 14 crew and is slightly faster than Fox's boat as it is able to reach 16 knots. 

Fox and property development mogul Max Beck both own private jets, which are currently grounded at Essendon Fields Airport. 

Luckily for them, they can store their jets for free since they jointly own the airport.

Superyacht Maridome (pictured) is 54 metres long and can fit 10 guests in five cabins and 14 crew in seven cabins and is slightly faster than Fox's boat as it is able to reach 16 knots

Premier Investments Chairman Solomon Lew (pictured) has been unable to access his Maridome yacht amid the COVID-19 pandemic

Property developer Gandel is the only Australian owner of the Bombardier Global Express 7500, which is the world's largest business jet.  

The monster plane can seat up to 19 passengers and has a master bedroom and a shower to wash off any flight ickiness.  

But like Fox and Beck, Gandel cannot make use of the plane's enormous 13,000km travel range due to COVID-19 travel bans.    

Paul Little's Gulfstream 650 is also sitting idly at his his $100-million Melbourne Jet Base in Tullamarine Airport.

A Bombardier Global 7500 plane, the world's largest business jet. Property developer John Gandel is the only Australian to own the plane but is unable to put it to full use due to bans on international travel

A private jet in Essendon Fields Airport, which is jointly owned by Lindsay Fox and Max Beck. Both millionaires have kept their jets at the airport due to travel bans

Mr Little said private airports were feeling the financial pinch as a result of less departures and arrivals from Australia's super rich. 

'Around the world, there are planes parked up that aren't being used because the demand's not there,' Mr Little told the Australian Financial Review . 

'We're even storing some aircraft at the moment that would typically be running in and out of – I think it's Korea – we're storing those planes because there's no demand. So it's not unique to Melbourne Jet Base.'

Mr Little said the COVID-19 pandemic reduced their traffic by roughly 20 to 30 per cent in March. 

Property developer John Gandel and his wife Pauline. Mr Gandel is the only Australian owner of the world's largest business jet, the Bombardier Global Express 7500, but is currently unable to fly overseas because of COVID-19 travel bans 

While many of Australia's wealthy folk are not able to play with their luxury toys, billionaire James Packer got out of the country before travel bans came into place. 

He was spotted earlier this month on his $200million luxury superyacht, which is docked in front of his $50million beachfront mega-mansion being built in Mexico's Cabo San Lucas.

The custom-made yacht was built by Benetti in Livorno, Italy, and measures 108 metres in length.  

James Packer with his New York socialite girlfriend Kylie Lim. Mr Packer got out of Australia before travel bans came into place and was recently spotted on his $200 million yacht in Mexico

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Luxury yachts and other myths: How Republican lawmakers echo Russian propaganda

Two senior Republican lawmakers, the chairs of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs committees, say their colleagues are echoing Russian state propaganda against Ukraine.

Researchers who study disinformation say Reps. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, are merely acknowledging what has been clear for some time: Russian propaganda aimed at undermining U.S. and European support for Ukraine has steadily seeped into America’s political conversation over the past decade, taking on a life of its own.

McCaul, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Puck News he thinks “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States, unfortunately, and it’s infected a good chunk of my party’s base.”

Turner, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNN that anti-Ukraine messages from Russia are “being uttered on the House floor.”

For the past decade, since Russia’s first military incursion into Ukraine in 2014, Moscow has spread propaganda and disinformation in a bid to undercut U.S. and European military support for Ukraine, according to U.S. and Western officials.

Some of the arguments, distortions and falsehoods spread by Russia have taken root, mostly among right-wing pro-Trump outlets and Republican politicians, researchers say, including that Ukraine’s government is too corrupt to benefit from Western aid and that the Biden family has alleged corrupt ties to Ukraine.

Russia, in keeping with traditional propaganda techniques, seeks to make its case and tarnish Ukraine through a mixture of outright falsehoods, half-truths, inferences or simply amplifying and promoting arguments already being made by American or European commentators and politicians, researchers say.

The propaganda is sometimes spread covertly, through fake online accounts, or openly by Russian officials and state media. As a result, the origin of some allegations or criticisms is often opaque, especially when a certain accusation or perception has gained wide acceptance, leaving no clear fingerprints.

Early in the war, a false story boosted by Russian propaganda — that the U.S. had helped Ukraine build biological weapons labs — gained traction on right-wing social media and was touted by then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Russia also is conducting a parallel propaganda campaign in Europe. Belgium’s prime minister said Thursday that his government is investigating alleged Russian bribes to members of the European Parliament as part of Moscow’s campaign to undermine support for Ukraine. Czech law enforcement officials last month alleged that a former pro-Russian member of Ukraine’s parliament, Viktor Medvedchuk, was behind a Prague-based Russian propaganda network designed to promote opposition to aiding Ukraine.

Here are some examples of Republican lawmakers using arguments often promoted by Russian propaganda:

Buying yachts

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with members of Congress behind closed doors in December to appeal for more U.S. help for his country’s troops, some lawmakers raised questions about Ukraine allegedly buying yachts with American aid money.

Zelenskyy made clear that was not the case, according to Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a strong supporter of arming Ukraine. “I think the notion of corruption came up because some have said we can’t do it, because people will buy yachts with the money,” Tillis told CNN. “[Zelenskyy] disabused people of those notions.”

Where did the yacht rumor come from?

Pro-Russian actors and websites promoted a narrative alleging Zelenskyy bought two superyachts with U.S. aid dollars. One Russia-based propaganda site, DC Weekly , published a story last November that included photos of two luxury yachts, called Lucky Me and My Legacy , which it alleged were bought for $75 million.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a vocal opponent of military aid to Ukraine, in November retweeted a post about the alleged yacht purchase from the Strategic Culture Foundation, a Russian-based propaganda outlet directed by Russia’s intelligence services, according to the Treasury Department. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on the organization, accusing it of spreading disinformation and interfering in U.S. elections.

Another outspoken critic of aid to Ukraine, Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, also made a similar claim.

In a December interview with former President Donald Trump’s White House adviser Steve Bannon, Vance claimed that members of Congress wanted to cut Social Security benefits to provide more aid to Ukraine, and that money would allegedly be used for Zelenskyy’s ministers to “buy a bigger yacht.”

“There are people who would cut Social Security, throw our grandparents into poverty. Why? So that one of Zelenskyy’s ministers can buy a bigger yacht?” Vance said. “Kiss my ass, Steve. It’s not happening.”

The tale of Zelenskyy’s luxury yacht, however, turned out to be totally false . The yachts cited in the DC Weekly article remain up for sale , the owners told The Associated Press.

Two academics at Clemson University, disinformation researchers Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren, found that DC Weekly ran numerous stories copied from other sites that were rewritten by artificial intelligence engines. The articles had bylines with fake names along with headshots copied from other online sites. DC Weekly appeared to be a Russian effort to launder false information through a seemingly legitimate news site as part of an attempt to undermine U.S. support for Ukraine, according to the researchers .

Asked by reporters about Vance’s comments, Tillis said: “I think it’s bullshit. ...If you’re talking about giving money to Ukrainian ministers — total and unmitigated bullshit.”

Greene’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Vance’s spokesperson said the senator was making a rhetorical point about how he opposed sending U.S. assistance to what he sees as a corrupt country, but was not asserting the yacht stories online were accurate.

Vance’s office referred NBC News to an earlier response to the BBC on the same topic:

“For years, everyone in the West recognized that Ukraine was one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Somehow everyone forgot that just as we started sending them billions of dollars in foreign aid.”

Enabling ‘corruption’

Russian state media for years has painted Ukraine as deeply corrupt, and has argued that the U.S. and its allies are wasting money and military hardware by assisting such an allegedly corrupt government.

“This is absolutely a line that they have pushed, and then once it appears in the Western ecosystem, other [Russian] media picks it up and it gets recycled back,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy.

This line of argument has gained traction partly because Ukraine does face a genuine corruption problem.

Russia’s effort to focus attention on corruption in Ukraine reflects a long-established propaganda method of using facts or partial truths to anchor a broader assertion or accusation, sometimes making a leap in logic, Schafer and other researchers said. Russia’s message amounts to: Ukraine is corrupt, therefore U.S. and Western aid will be stolen and wasted.

Schafer said it was ironic for Russia, a country mired in corruption and kleptocracy, to be leveling accusations about corruption.

Republican Rep. Mary Miller has said she strongly opposes more assistance for Ukraine because it amounts to sending cash to “corrupt oligarchs.”

“With Zelensky coming to DC this week to ask for more money, I will continue to vote AGAINST sending your tax $$ to corrupt oligarchs in Ukraine for a proxy war that could have ended in ‘22,” Miller wrote in a post on X in December.

The Illinois lawmaker also echoed another assertion that often appears in Russian media, that the Biden administration allegedly undermined efforts by Russia to avoid war with Ukraine.

 “A peace deal was on the table that [Ukraine] and [Russia] were both ready to sign, but Biden said NO,” she wrote.

There was in fact no proposed peace agreement that Russia and Ukraine were prepared to sign before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, according to U.S. and European officials. As Russian troops massed on the border of Ukraine, Western governments urged Russia not to invade and warned there would be economic and diplomatic consequences.

Reuters has reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin rejected a possible deal to avert a war that had been discussed with Kyiv by Russia’s envoy to Ukraine. The Kremlin said the report was inaccurate and has said Russia tried for years to arrive at an understanding with Ukraine.

As for corruption in Ukraine, Zelenskyy has vowed to tackle the problem, sacking senior officials in some recent cases. But some civil society groups have criticized his approach and Ukrainians say corruption is the country’s second-most serious problem, after the Russian invasion, according to a poll conducted last year.

In an annual survey, Transparency International said Ukraine made progress toward addressing the issue and now ranks 104th out of 180 countries on its Corruption Perceptions Index , climbing 12 places up from its previous ranking.

Ukraine is not alone among countries that receive U.S. and other foreign aid but struggle with corruption. Supporters of assisting Ukraine argue it would undermine America’s influence in the world and its humanitarian efforts if Washington withheld foreign aid from every country where there were reports of corruption.

Miller’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The Biden family and Ukraine

Republicans have repeatedly alleged that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter have corrupt ties to Ukraine, and that they sought $5 million in bribes from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma to protect the firm from an investigation by Ukraine’s prosecutor general.

There is no credible evidence for the allegations. A key source for the accusations against the Bidens is a former FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, who was arrested in February on federal charges of fabricating the bribery claims. Smirnov says he was fed information by Russian intelligence.

Republicans had heavily promoted Smirnov’s allegations against the Bidens, seeing them as crucial to a planned impeachment effort against the president that has since fizzled .

“In my estimation, that is probably the clearest example of Russian propaganda working its way into the American political system,” said Emerson Brooking, a resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council.

GOP Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona cited the false bribery allegations in expressing his opposition to providing assistance to Ukraine.

“In exchange for … bribe money from Ukraine, Joe Biden has dished out over $100 billion in taxpayer money to fund the war in Ukraine. I will not assist this corruption by sending more money to the authoritarian Ukrainian regime,” Gosar said in a statement in October.

Gosar’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Dan De Luce is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit. 

Syedah Asghar is a Capitol Hill researcher for NBC News and is based in Washington, D.C.