The Dominican Republic’s foreign minister explained that the plane had been in his country since last May for maintenance and that the US requested that the aircraft be immobilized for investigations into fraud, smuggling of goods and money laundering.
The Dominican Republic government said on Monday, September 2, that the handover to the United States authorities of the official plane of President Nicolás Maduro, which had been in the country since last May for maintenance, was authorized following two orders from the Justice Department of that nation.
Dominican Foreign Minister Roberto Alvarez said that the Government did not intervene in the process and that it limited itself to complying with what was ordered by the country’s courts, while assuring that the The aircraft was not registered in the name of Maduro or the Venezuelan government, but rather in the name of a private company.
Álvarez, who spoke at the press conference, explained that the Public Prosecutor’s Office received a request for international legal cooperation to immobilize the plane from the United States Department of Justice, in light of that agency’s investigations into whether the aircraft was the result of fraud, smuggling of goods and money laundering activities.
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“The aircraft has been in the country since May for maintenance purposes, as there are good quality services in the country,” the minister said.
In response to questions from the media during the press conference, Alvarez explained that on May 22, an order was received from a competent Dominican court authorizing the immobilization of the aircraft and “today, September 2, another legal order was received authorizing the delivery to the United States, and the Public Ministry handed it over.”
The diplomat reiterated that it was the courts that verified the merits of the confiscation of the aircraft, in response to requests to that effect from the Dominican Public Prosecutor’s Office.
“The information on this matter must be provided by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Public Prosecutor’s Office is autonomous and the central government has no opinion on this. We (the government) learned of this request when we received the formal note,” said the foreign minister.
The United States said Maduro’s official plane had been seized in the Dominican Republic over violations of sanctions against Venezuela.
Through a statement, the US government confirmed the news previously leaked by CNN and reported the seizure of a Dassault Falcon 900EX aircraft owned by Nicolás Maduro and people affiliated with him in Venezuela, which was operated in his name.
The aircraft was seized in the Dominican Republic with the assistance of the country’s authorities and transferred to Florida (USA) for having been “illegally purchased” for 13 million dollars “through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States for use by Nicolás Maduro and his cronies,” denounced the attorney general, Merrick B. Garland.
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry called the seizure “piracy” and said it reserved the right to take any legal action against the seizure.
With information from EFE
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