The U.S. government has seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s version of Air Force One after establishing that the plane’s purchase violated sanctions.
On Monday, the Justice Department (DOJ) announced that Maduro’s Dassault Falcon 900EX aircraft had been commandeered from the Dominican Republic.
The plane had touched down on the island for maintenance, but was seized and flown back to Florida by federal officials instead.
“This morning, the Justice Department seized an aircraft we allege was illegally purchased for $13 million through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States for use by Nicolás Maduro and his cronies,” Attorney General Merrick Garland stated.
A federal investigation discovered that associates of Maduro were allegedly able to illegally buy the plane from a company in Florida through the use of a shell company in the Caribbean sometime between 2022 and 2023.
After making the illicit purchase, the aircraft was sent to Venezuela in April 2023, where Maduro and officials have used to shuttle back and forth between a military base in the country.
The shell company was reportedly used to get around a 2019 sanction that prevents Maduro affiliates from doing business with the United States.
According to the Associated Press the plane was used during a December 2023 prisoner swap in Canouan.
The United States gave up alleged money launderer Alex Saab, a Maduro associate, for Americans that been prisoners in Venezuela for years.
“The seizure of this aircraft is another significant action by Homeland Security Investigations working with our domestic and international partners against the illegal activities of the Maduro regime,” Special Agent in Charge Anthony Salisbury with the Homeland Security Investigations of Miami remarked on Monday.
The Venezuelan government countered that the seizure was “piracy” in a statement the same day.
They said the United States has been accelerating “aggression” toward the Venezuelan government after Maduro was elected in July.
“Once again, the authorities of the USA, in a recurring criminal practice that could not be labeled anything but piracy, have illegally seized an aircraft that has been used by the president of the Republic, justifying its action in coercive measures that, illegally and unilaterally, they impose around the world,” the statement said.
Officials complained that the U.S. has “demonstrated that it uses its economic and military power to intimidate and pressure states” to pressure and intimidate small countries into becoming “accomplices” to their “criminal acts.”
“This is an example of the supposed ‘rules-based order’, which, disregarding international law, seeks to establish the law of the strongest,” the statement concluded.
According to the Associated Press, 55 planes belonging to state owned oil company PDVSA have been sanctioned by the United States.
Maduro’s claim that he won the election was met with protests after supporters of his opposition discovered that candidate Edmundo González won by over a 2-to-1 margin.
They gathered copies of votes from 80% of the nation’s 30,000 polling booths used during the July 28 election to make this determination.
In August, Venezuela’s Supreme Court, which is packed with Maduro loyalists, ruled that the incumbent had won by over a million votes and that reports suggesting otherwise were fraudulent.
The United Nations and the Carter Center, who observed the election, said that that the election results announced by Maduro and the Supreme Court were not credible.
The USA election is heading the way Venezuelan election went!