Federal prosecutors said George Semerene Quintero’s case showed Nicolás Maduro used the Venezuelan oil company to illegally funnel parts to maintain planes used by him and his cronies.
According to federal prosecutors, Semerene, 61, worked in procurement for Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., or PDVSA, when he conspired to buy the parts from U.S. companies through third parties.
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“Now, the only procurement he’ll be doing is at the prison commissary,” Matthew S. Axelrod, assistant secretary for Export Enforcement of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, recently said in a statement.
Court records show investigators had evidence of the deals to get bearings, rudder parts, joint slide flexes, and actuators from the U.S. to Venezuela from January 2019 to December 2021 in violation of U.S. sanctions and export controls.
After a federal grand jury indicted him and nine others in 2021 for the scheme, federal agents arrested Semerene on April 19 at the Miami International Airport and he pleaded guilty on Aug. 20.
The co-defendants include Venezuelan Col. Gilberto Araujo and two other PDVSA employees, Guillermo Marval and Fernando Blequette.
The other six indicted worked for third parties: Luis Duque, Melvin Aleman, Mikhail Largin, Pedro Sucre, Juan Gonzalez, and Juan Guerra.