Florida Man Sentenced to 55 Months in Prison for Violating Venezuela Sanctions
Florida resident Victor Mones Coro was sentenced to 55 months in prison for violating U.S. sanctions on Venezuela by chartering private flights for top Venezuelan officials, the Department of Justice said March 17. Sentenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Mones Coro provided millions of dollars in charter flight services to former Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami, his frontman Samark Lopez Bello, Venezuelan Supreme Court President Maikel Moreno and President Nicolas Maduro's 2018 campaign for president. The chartered flights violate the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions on the Venezuelan officials for their role in subverting democracy and proliferating authoritarianism. Mones Coro also will pay a $250,000 fine and serve two years of supervised release.
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In providing the illicit private charter flight services, Mones Coro designed a scheme involving the use of his U.S.-based company American Charter Services and its planes to take the sanctioned individuals to Russia and Turkey, among other locations, DOJ said. To cover up the operation, Mones Coro directed the use of code names, falsified flight manifests and invoices, received cash payments flown into the U.S. from Venezuela, and accepted wire transfers from a front company. “Victor Mones Coro led a concerted, sustained multi-year scheme to provide millions of dollars’ worth of illicit flight services to Venezuelan leaders in direct contravention of our country’s sanctions regime and foreign policy,” said U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss for the Southern District of New York. “Today’s sentence serves as a reminder that, together with our law enforcement partners, we will aggressively prosecute sanctions violators to protect our national security.”