Some legal advisors are telling clients worldwide who own super-yachts to take care before entering Italian waters, following the Italian tax police’s seizure of the 63-metre Force Blue owned by businessman Flavio Briatore, the Financial Times reports.

Briatore, part-owner of London football team Queens Park Rangers and a former Formula One boss, was sailing his super-yacht under the Cayman Islands flag, as is the case with 90 per cent of super-yacht owners, according to London-based law firm Bargate Murray.

He is suspected of evading €4 million in VAT on the boat, as well as “saving” around €800,000 on fuel, according to the report.

Three further super-yacht tax evasion investigations are underway, the report said, citing a spokesperson for The Guardia di Finanza tax police, who intercepted Force Blue off La Spezie last week, forcing Briatore’s wife and child to leave the vessel.

“The seizure is sending shockwaves through the super-yacht community,” Quentin Bargate, senior partner at  Bargate Murray, reportedly said in an interview.

“Our advice to clients has been to be very wary of Italy and to check carefully with advisors before engaging in charter activity there. We hear of other cases in the offing, so it just is not worth taking risks,” he said in a statement on the firm’s website.

“The situation right now is that even a well-run and properly structured yacht business might be targeted for something as routine and normal as flying a Cayman flag.”

Meanwhile, Briatore’s lawyers have reportedly challenged the seizure in court and deny any wrongdoing on his part.