Almost one week ago, Italian businessman and Monaco resident Flavio Briatore “received a request from the port office in Crotone [an Italian town in the Calabria region]. They begged, giving the coordinates, to go and check a boat that was asking for help and was seven or eight miles away”. Flavio decided to change course and found a boat full of migrants.

In an interview with the newspaper Verità & Affari, Flavio Briatore said: “They put the passengers in rubber dinghies, then put them on the boat. They activated and locked the autopilot, gave them a radio so they could call for help and abandoned them.

Flavio Briatore stayed with the boat until the harbour master’s office arrived.