WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has seized a plane used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Officials say the plane was purchased illegally through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States, and violated sanctions and export control laws.
The Dassault Falcon 900EX has been seized in the Dominican Republic and turned over to federal officials in Florida, the Justice Department said Monday.
U.S. officials say associates of the Venezuelan leader used a Caribbean-based shell company to hide their involvement in the purchase of the plane, valued at the time at $13 million, from a Florida company. The aircraft was exported from the U.S. to Venezuela in April 2023, via the Caribbean, in a transaction intended to circumvent an executive order barring U.S. persons from doing business with the Maduro regime.
The plane, registered in San Marino, was used extensively by Maduro for foreign travel, including to Guyana and Cuba earlier this year.
“Let this seizure send a clear message: aircraft illegally obtained from the United States for the benefit of sanctioned Venezuelan officials cannot simply fly off into the sunset,” Matthew Axelrod, assistant secretary for export enforcement at the Commerce Department, said in a statement.
CNN was first to report the seizure of the plane.
The announcement of the seizure comes just over a month after Venezuelans went to the polls in a long-awaited presidential election in which electoral authorities loyal to the ruling party declared Maduro the winner without providing detailed results to back up their claim. The lack of transparency has drawn international condemnation of Maduro’s government.
Meanwhile, the opposition secured more than 80% of ballots — considered the ultimate proof of the results — across the country. The documents, the faction said, showed Maduro losing by a wide margin to former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez.
It was also the plane that transported several Americans who had been held captive in Venezuela for years to the Caribbean island of Canouan last December, where they were exchanged for a close ally of Maduro, businessman Alex Saab, who is being held in the US on suspicion of money laundering.
In March, the plane flew to the Dominican Republic, along with a Venezuelan-registered plane, for what was believed to be maintenance, but never took off again.
The US has imposed sanctions on 55 Venezuelan-registered aircraft owned by state oil giant PDVSA.
There is also a $15 million reward offered for Maduro’s arrest so he can face federal drug trafficking charges in New York.
The Venezuelan government’s central news agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Associated Press news agency on Monday.