The international intrigue of private jets

If we had to identify the one place with the highest per-square-inch density of raw and undiluted international intrigue, there’s a decent chance we’d end up pointing at a private jet. It’s where so much wealth and power can often intersect.

So sit back, dear Intriguer, relax, and enjoy this guided tour of private jet intrigue.

First, the latest: US authorities have now seized Venezuela’s air force one while it was in the Dominican Republic – Maduro is accusing the US of “piracy“, the US says Venezuela got the aircraft in breach of US sanctions, and the Dominicans say Venezuela never revealed the jet (in town for maintenance) was Maduro’s.

Either way, this isn’t the first time the US has seized a Venezuelan jet. Heck, it’s not even the first this year: in February, the US seized another in Argentina after Iran tried to sell it to Venezuela (after years of using it to ship arms and fighters).

Oh, and while we’re in South America: Elon Musk has just implied he’ll use foreign courts to seize Brazil’s presidential jet, as part of his ongoing feud over the country’s approach to Twitter/X.

And let’s not forget tiny Guyana next door: a twin-engine Beechcraft landed on a remote runway there back in 2017, before its crew mysteriously fled. It was registered to one of Brazil’s top banks, but it’s unclear what exactly the aircraft was doing in the jungle. Either way, it’s now a Guyanese presidential aircraft.

Oh, and then there’s the jet that landed in Brazil carrying $16M plus the vice president of Equatorial Guinea in 2018. His dad (the president) had made him veep in hopes the immunity would help, after various nations started seizing his Michael Jackson memorabilia and jets on corruption charges. To stop a prosecution, Guinea even tried to sue France at the ICJ!

And while we’re in Africa, let’s swing by Nigeria, where a China-based firm is still pursuing Nigeria’s global assets over a complex dispute dating back to 2007. After seizing three presidential jets in France, the firm has now released one as a show of goodwill, but that’s just shone a light on the A330 jet itself, which once belonged to a mysterious sheikh before a German bank seized it over an unpaid loan.

And if you look out your window, you’ll see this Thursday marks a decade since South Africa detained a mysterious Nigerian jet carrying $10M in cash. Nigeria’s intelligence services then memorably fessed up that it was all just for arms: “movement of cash for strategic purchase of security equipment by intelligence service is not new; it is a global trend. The FBI, KGB, Mossad and others do it.”

Now let’s wrap this journey in Zambia, where folks are still investigating arguably the most intriguing private jet ever:

• It landed last year with arms, 127kg of fake gold, and $10M in cash, plus passengers from Latvia, the Netherlands, Spain, Egypt and Zambia.
• It was registered to tiny San Marino, operated out of Dubai, and had links to a rental firm in Belgium.
• Its mysterious owners asked FlightAware not to track it.
• And when an Egyptian journalist found links between passengers and the governments of Egypt and Zambia, he was detained.

Some of the passengers have now been released, while others are awaiting trial. The main theory is it was all a fake gold scam, but uffff, so much intrigue.

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

Private jets are a neat, visible, and tangible display of what makes our world go ‘round, and they touch on a few angles worthy of your consideration. Eg:

• Politics: Why is Maduro maintaining a luxury jet after driving so many of his own people into poverty, if not exile? Meanwhile, part of the thinking behind mass Western seizures of Russian jets was to drive a wedge between Putin and the elites that perpetuate his rule.
• Geopolitics: These asset seizures, for example, have taken some shine off China’s reputation in Africa; embarrassed Nigeria; and dragged France into distant disputes it’d rather avoid – Congo Brazzaville even threatened to revoke local French oil licences after a French court sold off Congo’s presidential jet last year. And speaking of which…
• Law: Is a presidential jet a sovereign asset, immune from seizure? Is seizing a presidential jet a violation of the Vienna Convention, or a valid way to repay a jilted investor? Oh, and are investor-state dispute tribunals part of the solution here, or more of the problem? (the above China/Nigeria feud escalated via their investment treaty)

Interestingly, some of these issues have reached US courts lately: just last month, a US court sided with the same China-based firm against Nigeria, effectively rejecting Nigeria’s claim of sovereign immunity. And a decade ago, the US supreme court sided with a US billionaire against Argentina, effectively limiting Argentina’s own claims of sovereign immunity, too.

Also worth noting:

• A bonus jet story: Somali intelligence seized $10M from a royal UAE jet landing in Mogadishu in 2018. Later, a new Somali PM then returned the cash personally with an apology, after concluding that the cash was for Somali soldiers fighting an Islamist insurgency.