Two Venezuelan businessmen once convicted in the U.S. as unregistered agents of the late Hugo Chavez have scored a major victory in a Miami courtroom in a bitter fight for control of the South American country’s largest private airline.
By AP News – Joshua Goodman
Nov 06, 2020
While Avior Airlines has largely been grounded by U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic, the investors hope to recover at least some of its assets, including a regional airline in neighboring Colombia.
A Miami circuit judge this week rejected a suit by Jorge Añez that alleged his Florida-based partners had overcharged Avior for parts and services.
Judge Michael Hanzman found that Añez had no authority to represent Avior, saying there was overwhelming evidence he cooked the company’s books and formed an “illegitimate board of friendlies” to seize the struggling airline.
Ruling on the previously unreported lawsuit, he found that Añez had lied in testimony and tried to use the U.S. legal system to perpetrate “fraud.”
“Mr. Añez’s claim of 100% ownership of Avior is a complete fabrication, which reeks of afterthought and was concocted only after ……a dispute over the operations of Avior,” the judge wrote.
Neither Añez, his lawyer nor Avior’s President Juan Bracamonte responded to repeated email and phone requests for comment.
The partner Añez tried to force out is an investment group that includes Carlos Kauffmann and Moises Maionica. Both men were sentenced in 2008 to more than a year in U.S. federal prison for their role in a political scandal involving a suitcase full of $800,000 in cash sent to Argentina aboard a Venezuelan government plane.
The two Venezuelan businessmen testified that they had been sent by then-President Chavez’s spy agency to Miami to offer hush money to an FBI informant to keep quiet about the cash shipment, which was allegedly destined to finance the campaign of former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Upon completing their sentences, both men remained in the U.S. and resumed their careers.
In 2010, they paid $5 million for a 50% share in Avior and its affiliates and helped transform it from a near-bankrupt carrier with a single aircraft to one serving routes throughout Venezuela as well as Miami and Latin America.
As foreign carriers abandoned Venezuela over payment disputes with the socialist government of Nicolas Maduro’ – Chavez’s successor – Avior for a while managed to fill the void, boosted by heavily subsidized jet fuel, a highly favorable exchange rate for its ticket sales in dollars and unmet demand from wealthier Venezuelans who still could afford to travel.
But as the U.S. has imposed stiff sanctions on Venezuela, the airline has once again come upon hard times.
In 2019, it lost its profitable route to Miami as the U.S. imposed a flight ban on Venezuelan airlines in its bid to force Maduro from power. It’s also been blacklisted by European regulators due to safety concerns. Meanwhile, the coronavirus has grounded its fleet of 26 aircraft for months.
The company’s highest-valued asset, an Airbus 340-300, was recently turned over to Maduro’s government to pay off old debts and fees, according to Kauffmann. This summer the same plane, its tail number changed and now operated by state airline Conviasa, flew from Caracas to Tehran, flight tracking records show.
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Read More: AP News – Miami judge blasts Venezuela’s top airline for ‘fraud’
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