The United States has filed a civil complaint to confiscate aircraft used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in violation of US sanctions.
The complaint has been filed with the District Court in the Southern District of Florida.
The US authorities will seek to confiscate the Dassault Falcon 900 EX aircraft with tail number T7-ESPRT, which was exported from the United States under false pretenses and operated in the interests of Nicolas Maduro in violation of US sanctions and export control laws. The plane was seized last year in the Dominican Republic at the request of the United States.
The complaint alleges that in 2023, a company based in the Caribbean island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines signed a contract to purchase an aircraft from a company in Florida for $13,250,000.
The person responsible for buying the plane was a Venezuelan citizen who hid that he represented the Maduro regime. The company that bought the plane, according to the complaint, acted only as the nominal owner of the aircraft, as it was established shortly before the purchase in June 2022, and was removed from the register of companies in St. Vincent for non-payment of annual fees in May 2024.
According to the US authorities, since May 2023, the plane has made at least 21 flights to Venezuela and back, and Maduro has been seen traveling on this plane on official visits to other countries, including as part of a prisoner exchange with the United States in December 2023.
In March 2024, a Dassault Falcon 900 EX aircraft was delivered to the Dominican Republic for maintenance and repair, where the company that bought it posed as its owner, hiding from the Dominican aircraft maintenance company that the aircraft was purchased and operated in the interests of the Maduro regime.
In May 2024, some individuals from Venezuela, including military personnel, tried to return a Dassault Falcon aircraft from the Dominican Republic. After attempts by Venezuelan citizens to return the Dassault Falcon 900 EX aircraft, the US government obtained an arrest warrant and demanded that the Dominican Republic arrest, detain and transfer the Dassault Falcon aircraft.
A second Dassault Falcon aircraft, identified by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as the blocked property of Petroleos de Venezuela, SA (PdVSA), a sanctioned Venezuelan state-owned oil and gas company, and illegally serviced and repaired in violation of U.S. sanctions, was also arrested in the Dominican Republic at the request of the US Government.
