Air Force Gone - CNN

 

Police surround Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro’s airplane in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Monday.

 

 

Imagine if an American adversary sent agents to fly away with Air Force One.   That outlandish comparison was being spoken of in Washington Monday, after the US seized Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro’s airplane on the grounds that Caracas never should have acquired it due to US sanctions, among other criminal issues.   The US flew the aircraft from the Dominican Republic, where it was seized, to Florida on Monday, according to two US officials.   The stunning sweep was the latest twist in a bitter showdown between the US and Venezuela, and the seizure of the Dassault Falcon 900EX has been described by officials as akin to sequestering Biden's signature blue-and-white jet.   “This sends a message all the way up to the top,” one of the US officials told CNN. “Seizing the foreign head of state’s plane is unheard-of for criminal matters. We’re sending a clear message here that no one is above the law, no one is above the reach of US sanctions.”   In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that “the Justice Department seized an aircraft we allege was illegally purchased for $13 million through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States for use by Nicolás Maduro and his cronies.”   The plane was purchased from a company in Florida, the Justice Department said, and was illegally exported in April 2023 from the United States to Venezuela through the Caribbean. It was used for Maduro's international travels and flew “almost exclusively to and from a military base in Venezuela,” the Justice Department said.   Caracas has described the seizure as “piracy," accusing the US escalating “aggression” toward Maduro’s government following a contested presidential election in July.   “The United States has already demonstrated that it uses its economic and military power to intimidate and pressure states such as the Dominican Republic to serve as accomplices in its criminal acts. This is an example of the supposed ‘rules-based order’, which, disregarding international law, seeks to establish the law of the strongest,” it said in a statement Monday.   The US has been ramping up pressure on the Venezuelan government to “immediately” release specific data regarding its presidential election, citing widespread concerns about the credibility of Maduro’s claimed victory.   Read more about the extraordinary story from CNN's Priscilla Alvarez here.