The US court gave the green light to the seizure of an Airbus A319 business jet linked to a Russian oligarch.
Photo by Thomas Naas
The plane in question is the Airbus A319ceo model, a plane that commonly flies with passengers from airlines around the world, but is also offered in a highly luxurious executive version that has been modified to carry just 25 passengers the Airbus Corporate Jet (ACJ) version. .
The jet is owned by Global Jet Luxembourg, a wellknown major air taxi company in Europe, but according to prosecutors for the Southern District of New York, this would only be a front to hide the real owner of the plane, oligarch Andrei Schoch.
Skoch is a member of the Duma, the Russian equivalent of the Chamber of Deputies. In addition to being a wellknown politician, he has several investments in companies, mainly in the metallurgy and metals sector, through his family name, and uses his influence in government to help companies, making him an oligarch by definition. Forbes lists him as a billionaire and the 601st richest in the world.
According to the US, the A319 registration P4MGU is owned and used by Skoch.
“Following the 2018 sanctions, which were expanded in 2021, U.S. dollar transactions were discovered To the aircraft in Aruba and pay for the insurance on the aircraft,” the prosecutor’s official statement said. The decision follows US sanctions against supporters of Vladimir Putin, who ordered the invasion of Ukraine earlier this year.
The plane is valued at $90 million and according to RadarBox data, the plane was last registered in Kazakhstan in March, after a short flight from Moscow. Despite this, many of its flights are suspended and it cannot be said that it is still there today. Kazakhstan is an ally of Russia and would not allow the seizure requested by the US to go through.