International disputes: the USA seizes Maduro’s jet
Even between states there is disagreement: the Biden administration declared that Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro's plane was confiscated in the Dominican Republic and transported to Florida on Monday, the latest act of disavowal of the United States from the Caracas regime all he day after the presidential election that the country's opposition declared was fraudulent.
The plane, a Dassault Falcon 900EX, was blocked by Dominican authorities earlier this year, and has now been taken to US Homeland Security Investigations in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, US law enforcement officials said, c as reported by the WSJ .
“I would say there was an opportunity with the aircraft,” Anthony Salisbury, director of Homeland Security Investigations in Miami, said in an interview. “The plane was officially repatriated today. So we have formally seized it and it will go through confiscation proceedings once we refuel it in our hangar.”
A Caribbean-based shell company was used to hide the regime's involvement in purchasing the plane for $13 million from a South Florida seller in late 2022 or early last year, the United States Department of Justice. The plane was illegally smuggled out of the United States for use by Maduro and his lieutenants, violating American sanctions on Venezuela.
During the Trump administration, the Treasury Department had imposed a series of sanctions against much of the regime's leadership, including Maduro, preventing Americans from doing business with a government accused of electoral fraud, human rights abuses and corruption.
“The Department will continue to prosecute those who violate our sanctions and export controls to prevent them from using American resources to undermine U.S. national security,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
Matthew S. Axelrod, assistant secretary for export enforcement at the Department of Commerce, said in the same statement that the seizure is intended to demonstrate that aircraft acquired illegally “for the benefit of sanctioned Venezuelan officials cannot simply fly off into the sunset ”.
Flying from the military base in Venezuela since May 2023, the plane has been used to transport the President and his lieutenants to Iran, Russia, Cuba, Caribbean islands and other countries. In December 2023 it was also used to transport Alex Saab, accused by the United States of being Maduro's bagman, from Florida to Caracas, after being exchanged for 10 Americans imprisoned by the Venezuelan regime. The plane had arrived in Santo Domingo during one of Mr. Saab's trips.
Venezuela's Foreign Ministry in a statement condemned the seizure of the plane by the United States, calling it piracy. Hours after the U.S. announcement of the seizure, Venezuelan prosecutors said they were seeking an arrest warrant to detain Edmundo González, the 75-year-old former diplomat who the U.S. and other governments say won the July 28 elections.
In February, Maduro reacted with fury after the Argentine government handed over to the United States a Boeing 747 cargo plane owned by a Venezuelan state airline. The plane was blocked in June 2022 at Ezeiza International Airport, outside Buenos Aires, after the United States issued a seizure warrant, concerned about the crew's possible links to terrorism.
The seizure of the plane is a sort of further spite by the USA towards the Maduro regime which, at the moment, however, has many other problems to face, due to the continuous disputes over the legitimacy of its presidential election which has found a certain level of support international and which undermines its legitimacy. A situation to which Maduro is already accustomed, but which risks impacting the economic situation of the country. Maduro is now busy reviewing his cabinet in an attempt to revitalize the government.
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The articleInternational disputes: the US seizes Maduro's jet comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/dispetti-internazionali-gli-usa-sequestrano-il-jet-di-maduro/ on Tue, 03 Sep 2024 09:00:34 +0000.