US seizes Boeing jet in Miami that was sold by sanctioned Iranian airline to Venezuela

The U.S. government on Monday took possession of a Boeing cargo plane in the Miami area that had been sold by a sanctioned Iranian airline to a Venezuelan company in violation of federal export control laws, according to the Justice Department.

The 747-300M cargo plane, flown from Argentina to Miami early in the morning, was owned by Mahan Air, an Iranian company targeted by the U.S. government for its support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, officials said. The Islamic force is a branch of the Iranian military and designated by the United States as a terrorist organization.

The Justice Department, with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami, obtained a seizure warrant in July 2022 to confiscate the plane in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where it was grounded until the jet’s arrival at Miami-Opa-locka Executive Airport in Miami-Dade County.

“The United States’ forfeiture of the Boeing 747 cargo plane culminates over 18 months of planning, coordination, and execution by the U.S. government and our Argentine counterparts,” Markenzy Lapointe, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said. “Bad actors — both near and far — are on alert that the United States will use all its tools to hold those who violate our laws to account.”

The incident raised attention in several South American countries as well as the United States and Israel amid allegations that the plane was a cover for Iranian intelligence operations in the region. Iran and Venezuela denied those claims.

The seizure warrant, along with cooperation from Argentine authorities, paved the way for the federal government to confiscate the U.S.-made plane stemming from Mahan Air’s “unauthorized transfer” of the Boeing aircraft to the Venezuelan state-owned cargo company, Emtrasur, Justice Department officials said. Emtrasur is a subsidiary of Conviasa, the country’s flag carrier.

In early January, an Argentine judge ordered that the cargo plane be surrendered to the United States, a decision that the Venezuelan government described as theft. The Boeing 747-300M aircraft, manufactured between 1982 and 1990, was initially priced at $83 million.

Prohibited transaction

Since 2008, the Department of Commerce has issued and renewed an order prohibiting Mahan Air from “engaging in any transaction involving any commodity exported from the United States.” Mahan Air violated that order in October 2021 when it sold the Boeing aircraft to Emtrasur without U.S. approval. Further violations occurred when the Venezuelan cargo airline flew the plane from Caracas to Tehran and Moscow between February and May 2022, authorities said.

“Mahan Air — known to ferry weapons and fighters for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah — violated our export restrictions by selling this airplane to a Venezuelan cargo airline,” said Assistant Secretary of Export Enforcement’s Matthew Axelrod of the Department of Commerce.

“Now, it’s the property of the U.S. government.”

For years, the U.S. government has imposed sanctions against Iran as well as Venezuela, which have close ties and signed a 20-year cooperation plan at the time of the Boeing cargo plane’s landing in Argentina in June 2022.

At the time, the Israeli government praised Argentina for grounding the plane and contended that at least some of the Iranian crew members “were involved directly in the trafficking of weapons to Syria and the terrorist organization Hezbollah of Lebanon.”

Detained in Argentina

Argentine authorities detained the Boeing aircraft, including a flight crew of 14 Venezuelans and five Iranians, after its stop in Buenos Aires en route to carrying auto parts to Uruguay, according to published reports.

The pilot of the plane, Gholamreza Ghasemi, was identified as an ex-commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and a shareholder and board member of a subsidiary of Mahan Air, according to the U.S. seizure warrant. Argentine authorities searched the aircraft and found a Mahan Air flight log documenting the plane’s flights after the unlawful transfer to Emtrasur, the seizure warrant says. Among them: a flight to Tehran in April 2022.

Both Mahan Air and the subsidiary, Qeshm Fars Air, have been sanctioned by the Department of the Treasury for providing “material support” to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

“The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that the full force of U.S. laws deny hostile state actors the means to engage in malign activities that threaten our national security,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

The Boeing aircraft case was investigated by the Department of Commerce, Bureau of Industry and Security, and the FBI in Miami, along with federal prosecutors Andy Camacho, Rajbir Datta and Elizabeth Abraham.

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