One of the crew members of the Venezuelan-Iranian plane who stayed in Paraguay for several days in May, and is currently being held in Argentina, is a member of the Quds Forces.
It is a division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – a terrorist organization for the US -, as reported this Friday by the Paraguayan National Intelligence Secretariat (SNI).
“According to what we know, and allied agencies confirmed to us, it is a person linked to the Quds,” confirmed the SNI minister, Esteban Aquino, to the ABC station.
According to the latest news from Argentina, they are investigating whether an Iranian identified as Gholamreza Gashemi, the name of a member of the Quds Forces, was traveling in the crew of the Boeing 747 Dreamliner.
“It’s not similar, it’s not namesake or anything, it’s the person. And that without a doubt is already worrying, ”said the Secretary of Intelligence in this context.
Aquino confirmed that the suspect is part of the crew that was in Paraguay from May 13 to 16.
As reported on that occasion by the Paraguayan Interior Minister, Federico González, the aircraft landed at the Guaraní airport, which serves the town of Ciudad del Este, bordering Brazil, and the crew, five Iranians and 14 Venezuelans, stayed in a hotel. of that locality.
Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez told local media on Thursday that his country had notified intelligence agencies in the region.
“Everything is being investigated through the Ministry of the Interior,” he said, adding that he also ordered administrative summaries of officials from various Paraguayan agencies.
The aircraft was owned by the Iranian company Mahan Air and currently belongs to Emtrasur, a subsidiary of the state-owned Consortium of Venezuelan Aeronautical Industries and Air Services (Conviasa), companies that are sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury.
The plane arrived in Argentina on June 6 from Mexico, after a stopover in Venezuela, bound for the Ezeiza airport, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, but had to make a stopover at the Argentine airport in Córdoba beforehand for climatic reasons.
On June 8, he took off from Ezeiza to go to Uruguay to refuel, but landed again at the main Argentine airport because the neighboring country did not allow him to land.
In Argentina, the oil companies did not load fuel on the plane for fear of US sanctions.
The Argentine Justice withdrew the passports of the crew members, preventing their departure from the country, and seized the device to obtain more information about what these people were doing in Buenos Aires.
