TRANSFER OF CARGO PLANE VIOLATED OUR EXPORT CONTROL LAWS
According to a press release issued in mid-February by the US Department of Justice, a Boeing 747 cargo plane was returned to the United States pursuant to a forfeiture order issued by a federal court judge.
Apparently, the aircraft was used by a sanctioned Iranian airline which was affiliated with a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and when the US learned of a transfer to a Venezuelan state-owned country, the DOJ filed a civil forfeiture complaint alleging that the transaction violated our country’s export control laws.
In a written statement, Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division noted that “The seized American-built aircraft was transferred by a sanctioned Iranian airline in a transaction that violated U.S. export control laws and directly benefited the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is a designated terrorist organization …. 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.”
Could that have been any planer?
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