The United States has seized the official plane of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. According to what is reported by the Cnnthe purchase of the vehicle – which was stopped in the Dominican Republic and then sent to Florida – would have violated “US sanctionsin addition to other criminal matters”.
Maduro’s presidential plane grounded
Merrick Garland, the Attorney General of the United States (the equivalent of our Attorney General) declared that “The Department of Justice has 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 Nicolás Maduro and his associates“.
American officials interviewed by Cnn describe the aircraft as the Venezuelan equivalent of Air Force Onethe plane carrying the American president. “We are sending a clear message: no one is above the law and no one is beyond the reach of US sanctions“, one of them said.
Sources from the TV station did not elaborate further on the conditions that led to the seizure, but explained that several federal agencies were involved in the process. These included the Bureau of Industry and Security and the departments of Homeland Security, Commerce and Justice. To carry out the operation, representatives from these agencies also collaborated with the Dominican Republicwhich then notified Venezuela of the embargo.
“The authorities [del Venezuela] and the Maduro regime are robbing the Venezuelan people for their own gain – one of the American officials declared Cnn –. There are people who can’t even buy a loaf of bread and then there’s the president of Venezuela who travels on a luxury private plane.”. The Venezuelan president’s plane has a estimated value of $13 million.
The United States’ iron fist against Maduro
Earlier this year the US government had reintroduced sanctions against Venezuela’s energy sector, in response to the Maduro administration’s refusal to guarantee a fair election and the disqualification of opposition candidate María Corina Machado from the presidential election. Following the Maduro’s disputed re-election in Julythe United States pressured Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE) to release “immediately” the voting data, citing concerns and doubts about the credibility of the results.
Last week, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the CNE continues to breach international and domestic principles of transparencydenouncing the “unacceptable violation” of the laws of the South American country and accusing the Supreme Court of having contributed to “silence the voices of the voters by ratifying the unfounded announcement of Maduro’s victory”. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil responded to the accusations by declaring that his government “he doesn’t need explanations” to the United States regarding the re-election of Maduro and condemning the Department of Defense, guilty of “persist with his despicable position of interfering in matters that do not concern him“.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that In the last ten years, almost 8 million people have emigrated from Venezueladriven by the economic crisis, lack of food, limited access to health services and repression by the Maduro regime.
This article originally appeared your Wired in Spanish.