WASHINGTON (AP):

The US government has seized a luxury jet used by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that officials say was illegally purchased through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States, in violation of sanctions and export-control laws.

The Dassault Falcon 900EX was seized in the Dominican Republic and transferred to the custody of federal officials in Florida, the Justice Department said on Monday. The plane landed at Ft Lauderdale Executive Airport shortly before noon on Monday, according to flight tracking websites.

US officials say associates of the Venezuelan leader, in late 2022 and early 2023, used a Caribbean-based shell company to hide their involvement in the purchase of the plane, valued at the time at US$13 million, from a company in Florida. The plane was then exported from the US to Venezuela, through the Caribbean, in April 2023 in a transaction meant to circumvent an executive order that bars US persons from business transactions with representatives of the Maduro regime.

The plane, registered to San Marino, 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 US on money-laundering charges. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that it had been smuggled out of the US for use by “Maduro and his cronies”.

State media footage from a December visit to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines shows Maduro, First Lady Cilia Flores, and senior officials getting off the airplane ahead of a day of discussions over a territory dispute between Venezuela and neighbouring Guyana.

“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,” Matthew Axelrod, an assistant secretary for export enforcement in the Commerce Department, said in a statement.