George Semerene Quintero, a former head of logistics, procurement, and storage at Venezuelan state-owned oil conglomerate PDVSA - Petróleos de Venezuela (Caracas Simón Bolivar), has pleaded guilty to circumventing United States sanctions on the sale of aviation parts. He now faces up to 20 years in jail.

"This defendant admitted to participating in an illicit scheme to procure millions in aviation equipment for the Maduro regime," Assistant Attorney General Matthew G Olsen of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) said.

Semerene ran a scheme between 2019 and 2021 to procure various aircraft parts in the US to maintain PDVSA's fleet of aircraft. Together with his nine unnamed co-defendants, he lied to US suppliers about the destination of the parts, the DOJ said, and made false customs and shipping declarations, invoices, and end-user certificates. The parts were exported using freight forwarders and shipping companies based in Florida.

A Costa Rican company, Novax Group SA, and a Spanish company, Aerofalcon SL, were listed as end-users of the exported parts. Both companies were sanctioned by the US in 2023.

Semerene will be sentenced on November 5. He was arrested in April 2024 after his arrival to the US.

PDVSA operates one Falcon 2000EX, four Falcon 50s, one Falcon 900EX, two Falcon 900EX EASy, and seven Learjet 45XR aircraft.