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Sheriff’s deputies embarked on boat chase in Florida and hunted down a stolen luxury yacht and busted the hijacker, who turned out to be Russian national.
The 66-foot yacht was stolen from the Blowing Rocks Marina near Tequesta on Monday afternoon and driven along the Intercoastal Waterway in Hobe Sound, according to the Martin County Sheriff’s Office.
Video footage from the scene showed six armed deputies hopping onto a boat and speeding off in the body of water to pursue the hijacker.
The suspect on the yacht was ‘attempting to evade capture’ as sheriff’s marine and ground units, SWAT team members and detectives closed in and prepared to jump on board, stated the sheriff’s office on Facebook.
‘He was behind three levels of tinted windows that we could not see in and then our deputies were responding they had riffles, but they had no cover,’ Sheriff John Budensiek told CBS12.
The suspect maneuvered toward the Hobe Sound Bridge and officials let the yacht through to prevent damage to the land structure, but the chase didn’t last too long afterward.
Units quickly surrounded the yacht and forced it to come to a halt along a stretch of shrubbery. Some of the deputies pointed rifles at the luxury vessel as the suspect was apprehended.
‘AND CAPTURED!’ wrote the sheriff’s office, along with the hashtag #WrongInlet.
The suspect, wearing an orange lifejacket, was pictured sitting cross-legged at the front of the yacht as two deputies held him on each side. Other photos showed him appearing downcast as they escorted him onto a tender boat and onto a dock and back to land.
He was identified as Nikolai Vilka and did not speak English, so the Department of Homeland Security brought a Russian interpreter to assist in the investigation.
No further information was immediately released around Vilka.
‘We’re trying to figure out where he came from, what was he doing and what he was trying to do with the vessel,’ said Budensiek. ‘But there’s a lot of questions we have.’
The yacht was reported stolen by the dockmaster.
‘Our guys were confident, our supervisors were confident that boat was not going to go very far without some real trouble from the Martin County Sheriff’s Office,’ said Budensiek.
Tequesta is about 20 miles north of West Palm Beach.
It happened nearly five years after police chased a Thames River Bus thief for four miles across London.
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