The U.S. government seized an aircraft belonging to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday in the Dominican Republic, according to the Department of Justice.
Government officials said the seizure was in response to sanctions and export control violations after Maduro’s affiliates used a shell company to purchase the $13 million airplane from a Florida-based company and transfer it to Venezuela in April 2023.
Since then, the plane has flown “almost exclusively” to and from a military base in Venezuela and has at times transported Maduro in and out of the country, the officials said.
“Let this seizure send a clear message: aircraft illegally acquired from the United States for the benefit of sanctioned Venezuelan officials cannot just fly off into the sunset,” Department of Commerce official Matthew Axelrod said in a statement.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Maduro and “his cronies” illegally smuggled the plane and that the DOJ would “continue to pursue those who violate our sanctions and export controls to prevent them from using American resources to undermine the national security of the United States.”
The U.S. transferred the plane, a Dassault Falcon 900EX, to the U.S. Southern District of Florida with the help of the Dominican Republic, DOJ officials said.
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The officials cited an executive order signed by former President Donald Trump that banned people in the U.S. from engaging in transactions with those who act on behalf of the Venezuelan government, as well as Department of Commerce-imposed export controls on items intended for use by the Venezuelan military.
The seizure comes about a month after Venezuela’s presidential election, which sparked widespread protest in the country after Maduro declared he won reelection. The U.S. State Department disputed the results, saying the authoritarian ruler’s claim of victory was a farce and that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia had, in fact, received the most votes.
