Newsweek has obtained new images of the government airplane linked to Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, seized by the U.S. government on Monday.
The two pictures, provided by the U.S. Department of Justice, show the Dassault Falcon 900EX on American soil shortly after it was seized and flown from the Dominican Republic to Florida on Monday.
U.S. officials say that associates of the Venezuelan leader used a Caribbean-based shell company in late 2022 and early 2023 to conceal their involvement in the $13 million purchase of the jet from a Florida company, violating U.S. sanctions and export control laws targeting the regime in the process.
The plane was then exported from the U.S. to Venezuela, through the Caribbean, in April 2023 in a transaction meant to circumvent an executive order that bars Americans from conducting business transactions with representatives of Maduro's government.
The Department of Justice confirmed that multiple federal agencies, including Homeland Security Investigations, played critical roles in the operation, marking a bold step in their ongoing efforts to disrupt assets linked to Maduro's regime.
"Let this seizure send a clear message: aircraft illegally acquired from the United States for the benefit of sanctioned Venezuelan officials cannot just fly off into the sunset," said Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement Matthew S. Axelrod of the Department of Commerce in a statement shared on Monday.
The plane, Venezuela's equivalent of Air Force One, has flown almost exclusively to and from a military base in Caracas since May 2023 and was widely used by Maduro for foreign travel, including in trips earlier this year to Guyana and Cuba.
It was also involved in a December swap on a Caribbean airstrip of several Americans jailed in Venezuela for a close Maduro ally, Alex Saab, imprisoned in the U.S. on money laundering charges.
Venezuela's government acknowledged the seizure in a statement Monday. It characterized the U.S. government's move as "a repeated criminal practice that cannot be described as anything other than piracy."
The seizure announcement comes just over a month after ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared Maduro the victor in presidential elections without showing any detailed results to back up their claim. The lack of transparency has drawn international condemnation. Meanwhile, the opposition managed to obtain more than 80% of vote tally sheets showing Maduro lost by a wide margin against former diplomat Edmundo González.
Late Monday, a Venezuelan judge issued an arrest warrant for González as part of a criminal investigation into the results of the disputed July election. The warrant was issued at the request of authorities who accuse González of various crimes including conspiracy, falsifying documents and usurpation of powers.
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