Tracing Tiffany Trump’s Mediterranean Yacht Getaway to a Billionaire Oil Tycoon’s Vessel

This past summer, a tip reached our team indicating that Tiffany Trump, daughter of former President Donald Trump, and her husband were sailing the Mediterranean aboard a yacht owned by a Turkish billionaire.

At the time, Tiffany’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, served as a senior adviser for the State Department’s Africa affairs. Career diplomats and senior officials within the Trump administration had privately voiced concerns about potential conflicts involving the Boulos family’s business dealings.

We saw this yacht tip as a potential example of how members of the Trump family might benefit from or associate with foreign businessmen who hold stakes in U.S. foreign policy.

The challenge was to verify this connection.

Shortly after receiving the tip, Tiffany Trump began sharing numerous Instagram photos documenting her family’s yacht vacation along France’s French Riviera. Trump is married to Michael Boulos, son of Massad Boulos.

Given the Mediterranean’s crowded summer yacht scene, the photos offered limited clues about which vessel they were on.

A brief three-second video of a sailboat passing nearby provided the first significant lead.

In the video, a sailboat marked with “D3” on its sail navigates a rocky, mountainous coastline. In the background, a tall, arched bridge spans a wooded valley. Comparing this structure with images of coastal bridges identified it as the Devil’s Bridge in Èze, France.

Based on the bridge’s position in the clip, the video was likely filmed from the Gulf of Saint-Hospice.

The “D3” marking suggested the sailboat was the Tuiga, the flagship yacht of the Monaco Yacht Club. Online vessel trackers confirmed the Tuiga had only sailed in the Gulf of Saint-Hospice twice in recent months — on July 27 and 28.

This information narrowed our search significantly. For Tiffany Trump to have filmed both the Tuiga and the Devil’s Bridge simultaneously, she almost certainly had to be aboard one of the yachts anchored nearby during that period.

Using a feature-matching technique frequently employed by our Visual Investigations team, we cross-referenced yachts anchored in the Gulf that day with photos from charter websites. We manually examined details such as seat designs and paint colors to find matches with Trump’s shared images.

A clear match emerged: the Phoenix 2, a nearly 90-meter yacht ranked among the world’s 100 longest vessels.

The Phoenix 2 was anchored just a few hundred meters from where the Tuiga departed on July 27.

Photos of the yacht’s railings and lighting corresponded with several images and videos posted by Trump. One picture featured a small motorboat with a distinctive wraparound windshield floating near the yacht, matching the Phoenix 2’s tender boat.

Additionally, Trump shared a photo of herself and her husband relaxing on an inflatable raft. A specialized publication, SuperYacht Times, showed the same type of raft connected to the Phoenix 2.

Public information about the yacht’s owner was limited, but SuperYacht Times reported it belonged to a “Turkish businessman,” aligning with the initial tip.

Industry sources identified the owners as petrochemical billionaire Ercument Bayegan and his wife, Ruya Bayegan. A spokesperson for Ruya Bayegan’s company, BGN International, stated that Bayegan was not aboard the Phoenix 2 during that time and that the guests had no business ties to their firm.

Although Tiffany Trump posted the photos after the fact rather than in real time, we used MarineTraffic, a vessel tracking website, to confirm the Phoenix 2’s presence in the Mediterranean and along the French Riviera from early July through late August.

By analyzing the backgrounds of Trump’s photos — including other boats captured in the frame — we estimated when they were taken. This allowed us to establish that the Trump-Boulos family alternated between the Phoenix 2 and another yacht, the Magna Grecia, for at least ten days.

Records show that the Magna Grecia is owned by an expanding conglomerate controlled by Greek billionaire Ioannis Papalekas, whose company also has energy sector interests.

Papalekas holds a majority stake in a company managing a private estate on St. Marguerite Island. Known as Le Grand Jardin, this estate can be rented for up to $290,000 per week. Photographs indicate that Tiffany Trump and her mother, Marla Maples, spent time there during their yacht trip.