US issues Warrant for airplane owned by a Russian but US-made over violations of sanction.
In accordance with a declaration made public on Wednesday, the US government has applied for and been granted a warrant to confiscate a $25 million Russian aircraft.
The Boeing 737-7JU, a US-made airplane, is charged with flying from another country to Russia in defiance of US law and sanctions put in place following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
According to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, the airplane was last in the US in 2014. Yet, the US asserts that the jet violated federal law by flying “at least seven times” into and out of Russia.
The PJSC Rosneft Oil Corporation, with its head headquarters in Moscow, is said to be the owner of the Boeing. It is one of the biggest publicly listed oil companies on earth.
“Today’s enforcement action demonstrates there is a price to pay for Russian companies and oligarchs that flagrantly evade sanctions that the United States has imposed in response to the unjustified war against the people of the Ukraine,” US Attorney Breon Peace said in the press release.
Igor Ivanovich Sechin, the CEO of Rosneft, was previously sanctioned by the US in 2014 due to his connections to the Russian government.
Then-US President Barack Obama issued an executive order directed at anyone who were believed to be “responsible for or complicit in” measures to undermine the sovereignty and democracy of Ukraine.
The US issued a warrant for a Boeing 737-7EM, another American-built but Russian-owned aircraft, in August 2022.
The plane, estimated to be worth $45 million, was also charged with entering and leaving Russia in defiance of US sanctions. It too was controlled by the Moscow-based PJSC Lukoil Oil Corporation, a global energy company from Russia.
