The United States announced Monday that it had seized a plane belonging to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro over alleged violations of U.S. sanctions. Washington said the plane, a Dassault Falcon 900EX, was illegally acquired for $13 million through a shell company and then smuggled out of the United States.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the aircraft was seized in the Dominican Republic and transferred to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, stressing that the plane had been acquired illegally.
Venezuela denounces an “act of piracy”
Following this operation by the American justice system, the Venezuelan government strongly condemned this action, calling it an “act of piracy.” “Venezuela denounces before the international community that once again, the United States authorities, in a repeated criminal practice that can only be described as an act of piracy, have illegally confiscated an aircraft used by the President of the Republic,” a statement said.
“This action reveals that no state or constitutional government is immune from illegal actions that flout international law,” the statement continued.
Tensions between Washington and Caracas
For its part, the Dominican Republic, where the plane was located before it was seized for maintenance operations, clarified that it had not participated in the investigation conducted by the American authorities. Roberto Alvarez, the Dominican Minister of Foreign Affairs, explained to journalists that the Dominican authorities had “only” responded to an “international request for mutual legal assistance”, indicating that their role had been limited to this framework.
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The US government’s action is part of a long sequence of tensions between Washington and Caracas. In 2019, under President Donald Trump, the executive branch issued an executive order prohibiting any person in the United States from conducting transactions with anyone who “directly or indirectly acted for or on behalf of the Government of Venezuela.”
In March 2020, the Justice Department announced the indictment of Nicolás Maduro and other senior officials. They were accused of having allied themselves with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) “to flood the United States with cocaine.”
