The United States sent a “clear message” with its seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s plane, a Commerce Department official said Monday.
The U.S. seized a Dassault Falcon 900EX aircraft owned by Maduro and used by him and his associates, the Department of Justice announced Monday. The plane was seized in the Dominican Republic and brought back to Florida after it was illegally sold by a Florida-based company for $13 million and smuggled out of the U.S. to Venezuela in an April 2023 deal in violation of U.S. export control and sanction laws, the DOJ 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,” said Matthew Axelrod, the Commerce Department’s assistant secretary for export enforcement, in a statement.
He continued: “It doesn’t matter how fancy the private jet or how powerful the officials—we will work relentlessly with our partners here and across the globe to identify and return any aircraft illegally smuggled outside of the United States.”
Newsweek reached out to the Commerce Department via email and the DOJ via an online form for comment on Monday afternoon.
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In August 2019, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to prohibit dealings between the U.S. and the Venezuelan government.
The U.S. has placed extensive sanctions on Maduro’s regime “for extensive corruption, economic mismanagement, and violation of international norms,” according to the U.S. Department of State’s website.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department has imposed “export controls for items intended, entirely or in part, for a Venezuelan military or military-intelligence end user,” according to the DOJ’s Monday press release.
In late 2022 and early 2023, Maduro’s associates allegedly used a Caribbean-based shell company to hide their involvement in the illegal aircraft purchase and then smuggled it through the Caribbean. Since May 2023, the plane has almost exclusively flown to and from a military base in Venezuela and has even been used by Maduro on his visits to other countries, according to a U.S. investigation.
Citing several flight tracking websites, the Associated Press said the plane was previously registered in the U.S. and owned by Six G Aviation, a Lorida, Florida–based used aircraft broker. The plane was de-registered in the U.S. in January 2023, according to the AP.
Newsweek reached out to Six G Aviation via email for comment on Monday afternoon.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday that the DOJ will “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.”