WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has seized a luxury jet used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that officials say was illegally purchased through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States in violation of sanctions and export control laws.
The Justice Department said Monday that the Dassault Falcon 900EX was seized in the Dominican Republic and transferred to the custody of federal authorities in Florida. The plane landed at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport shortly before noon on Monday, according to a flight tracking website.
U.S. officials said aides to the Venezuelan leader used Caribbean-based shell companies to conceal their involvement in the purchase of the plane, then valued at $13 million, from a Florida company in late 2022 or early 2023. The plane was then exported from the United States to Venezuela via the Caribbean in April 2023, a transaction designed to circumvent a presidential order banning business transactions between Americans and representatives of the Maduro regime.
The San Marino-registered plane has been used frequently for Maduro’s international travel, including trips to Guyana and Cuba earlier this year, and was also involved in the exchange at an airport in the Caribbean in December of several Americans jailed in Venezuela for Alex Saab, a Maduro aide jailed in the United States on money laundering charges.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the plane was smuggled out of the United States for use by “Maduro and his cronies.”
The Venezuelan government confirmed the seizure in a statement on Monday, describing the US actions as “a repeated criminal act that can only be described as piracy.”
State media footage from a December visit to St. Vincent and the Grenadines showed Maduro, First Lady Cilia Flores and other senior officials disembarking from a plane ahead of a day of talks over a territorial dispute between Venezuela and neighboring Guyana.
“This seizure sends a clear message: aircraft illegally obtained from the United States on behalf of sanctioned Venezuelan officials will not just disappear,” Commerce Department Under Secretary for Export Control Matthew Axelrod said in a statement.
The plane seizure was first reported by CNN.
The announcement of the seizures came just over a month after electoral officials loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner of the presidential election without providing any detailed results to back up their claim — a lack of transparency that has drawn international condemnation. Meanwhile, the opposition managed to obtain more than 80% of the vote tally showing Maduro’s landslide defeat to former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez.
Late Monday, a Venezuelan judge issued an arrest warrant for Gonzalez as part of a criminal investigation into the results of July’s election. The warrant was issued at the request of authorities who have accused Gonzalez of a range of crimes, including conspiracy, forgery and usurpation of power.
The plane was previously registered in the U.S. and was owned by Six G Aviation, a used aircraft sales broker based in Florida, Fla. According to FAA records, the plane was exported to St. Vincent and the Grenadines and was deregistered in the U.S. in January 2023.
Six G owner Gary Gwynn declined to comment, telling The Associated Press that he had been “instructed by the FBI not to talk to anyone.”
In March, the plane, along with a Venezuelan-flagged plane, flew to the Dominican Republic for what was believed to be maintenance and was never seen again.
Monday’s action came after the U.S. government earlier seized in Argentina a Boeing 747-300 cargo plane that was being transported from Iran to a subsidiary of Venezuela’s national airline.
Federal prosecutors also seized several private jets belonging to government officials and insiders who have been sanctioned or indicted in the United States.
The United States has imposed sanctions on 55 Venezuelan-flagged aircraft, most of which belong to state oil giant PDVSA, and has offered a $15 million bounty for the arrest of Maduro, who faces federal drug trafficking charges in New York.
“A comprehensive investigation into Venezuelan government corruption is ongoing and will continue,” Special Agent in Charge Anthony Salisbury of the Department of Homeland Security Investigations in Miami told The Associated Press. “It’s certainly not over yet.”
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Garcia Cano reported from Mexico City and Goodman from Miami. Associated Press writer Gisela Salomon contributed to this report from Miami.
