On Monday, the United States confiscated a private jet owned by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro owing to sanctions violations. The aircraft involved, a Dassault Falcon 900EX was taken in the Dominican Republic and flown to Florida. The US Justice Department said the Gulfstream jet was “illegally procured” through a front company for $13m and taken out of the US for Maduro.
Specifically, Merrick Garland, the attorney general of the United States, stressed the significance of the seizure claiming it was a reaction to Maduro’s failed governance and corruption. “After we accused Nicolas Maduro and his allies of using a plane unlawfully bought for $13m through a proxy company and exported from the US, Justice Department officials took action,” Garland said.
A website called Flight Radar 24 recorded the movement of the plane; it was flying from Santo Domingo to Fort Lauderdale on Monday morning.
The seizure occurred in light of post-July 28 presidential election violence in Venezuela where questions arose over the authenticity of Nicolas Maduro’s presidency. Unrest followed the announcement of President Maduro’s victory insisting that the opposition party had actually won by a wide margin and actually possessed the documents to prove it. More than 2,400 individuals were detained during the protest, which also took the lives of 27 individuals and left at least 192 more individuals wounded.
New allegations of authoritarianism and vote-rigging have been leveraged against Maduro’s government – the US National Security Council claimed that the Venezuelan leader “falsely declared victory,” and suppressed protests to stay in power. The United States, the European Union,, and several Latin American countries have rejected the results of the elections without oversight of vote counting.
Sanctions introduced by Washington upon Venezuela in 2005 have been ramped since laying the blame on more human rights abuses and corruption in Maduro’s government. The Trump administration took these measures even further by adding financial and sectoral sanctions which helped avoid dialogue with Maduro’s administration on the international arena. The arrest of the plane constitutes a sign of advanced measures in the ongoing pressure on Maduro.
