(Washington) The United States announced Monday that it had seized a plane belonging to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro over alleged violations of American sanctions, the latest episode in heightened tensions between the two countries.
“This morning, the Department of Justice seized an aircraft that we believe was illegally purchased for $13 million through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States for use by Nicolas Maduro and his ilk,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The aircraft, a Dassault Falcon 900EX, was seized in the Dominican Republic and transferred to Florida (southeast), it is specified in the press release.
In August 2019, under the presidency of Republican Donald Trump, the American executive branch issued a decree prohibiting any person in the United States from carrying out transactions with anyone who “directly or indirectly acted for or on behalf of the government of Venezuela,” the department recalled.
The seizure of the plane comes as the United States, like much of the international community, recently opposed the decision by Venezuela’s Supreme Court to validate Maduro’s re-election in a late July election that the opposition claims it won.
“Mr. Maduro and his proxies falsified the results of the July 28 presidential election, falsely claimed victory, and engaged in widespread repression to maintain power by force,” a White House National Security Council spokesman said Monday, adding that the seizure was “an important step in ensuring that Maduro continues to face the consequences of his misrule.”
In March 2020, the US Department of Justice announced the indictment of Nicolas Maduro and other senior Venezuelan officials and offered a bounty of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of the socialist president in power since 2013.
Nicolas Maduro and these officials were accused of having allied themselves with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), “to flood the United States with cocaine.”