U.S. Seizes Iranian-Tied Cargo Jet Grounded in Argentina

The U.S. seized a Venezuelan-owned cargo jet with ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that had been grounded in Argentina after its arrival two years ago prompted an investigation into possible terrorism ties, Biden administration officials said.

The Boeing 747, owned by Venezuela state airline Emtrasur, arrived in Florida on Monday, the Justice Department said. The plane had been sold to Emtrasur by Iran’s Mahan Air, a transaction that the Justice Department said violated U.S. sanctions laws levied against the private Iranian carrier. Mahan has been blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury for alleged arms trafficking.

“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,” Matthew Axelrod, the U.S. assistant secretary of export enforcement, said in a statement. “Now, it’s property of the United States government.”

On Monday, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil called the seizure “shameless robbery.”

“The disgraceful theft is added to the list of criminal aggressions against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” the ministry said. “Venezuela, free and sovereign, will give a forceful, direct and proportional response to this attack.”

The plane was grounded in June 2022 at the Ezeiza International Airport outside Buenos Aires after neighboring Uruguay denied the crew’s request to stop over for refueling. The crew had said it was transporting auto parts from Mexico, however some opposition politicians in Argentina said that was a cover for an intelligence operation in their country. The U.S. issued a seizure warrant for the aircraft shortly after it touched down in Argentina.

The 19-member crew of Venezuelans and Iranians included a pilot who U.S. and Latin American law-enforcement officials said is a high-ranking member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The five Iranian men on board had claimed to be training the Venezuelans to fly the jet. A previous Argentine judge released the crew members in October 2022.

“The question was what is this cargo liner doing flying with this outsized crew in odd places in the region,” said Evan Ellis, a Latin America expert at the U.S. Army War College. “The plane was a smoking gun showing that Venezuela was still complicit in facilitating access and mobility in the region by Iranian and Hezbollah agents.”

Iranian officials stand accused of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina,  home to Latin America’s biggest Jewish population. Iran was also accused of bombing a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires two years later. The bombings killed 114 people. Tehran has denied the accusations.

An Argentine court’s decision last month to hand over the plane to the U.S. came after the change in government in Buenos Aires. President Javier Milei, a sharp critic of Venezuela and other authoritarian regimes, took office in December, pledging to forge close ties with the U.S. and Israel. Milei’s leftist predecessor, Alberto Fernández, was an ally of Venezuela and other rivals of the U.S. and had been reluctant to hand over the plane to the Biden administration.

“That Argentina has now done what it is obligated to do under the law reflects the fact that the political resistance has now gone away,” said Ellis.

Write to Ryan Dubé at [email protected]