The opacity in the operations of the Venezuelan cargo plane that remains detained in Ezeiza had already drawn attention in other destinations: in May, the Boeing 747-300 of the Emtrasur company had been Under Scrutiny from the Paraguayan aeronautical authorities due to the excessive number of crew members it carried, seven of whom were of Iranian origin.
The arrival in Paraguay of the Venezuelan plane was on May 13. The landing was in east city, a place not used to receiving a huge cargo 747 at its airport. Something else caught the attention of the local aeronautical authorities: Emtrasur’s Boeing It had 18 passengers on board: seven Iranians and 11 Venezuelans..
“This is what the company declared, cargo planes really always have 6 or 7 crew members: it was striking that more people have come“, recognized the director of Airports of the National Directorate of Civil Aviation (Dinac) of Paraguay, Douglas Cubilla. “It is the statement made by the company, we cannot intervene either, they declare them as crew members and they will have their reasons“, he added when asked by ABC Radio Cardinal AM 730 of Asunción about the unusual number of crew members of the Venezuelan plane.
Emtrasur’s 747 was parked at the Ciudad del Este airport all weekend: it arrived on Friday, May 13, and took off at 3 in the morning on Monday, May 16, bound for Aruba. declared transport a shipment of cigarettes of the local company Tabesa —one of whose shareholders is former Paraguayan president Horacio Cartes— valued at nearly 800 thousand dollars.
According to Cubilla, “the crew —by protocol— They went from the plane to the hotel and from the hotel to the plane“. All were subjected to the usual controls of Migrations and cargo, reviewed by agents of the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (Senad) of Paraguay.
The flights of the Boeing 747-300 operated by Emtrasur have been under scrutiny since their very beginning in February of this year: the plane —which bears the registration number YV3531— was transferred to the Venezuelan company by an Iranian company, Mahan Airin private theory and pointed out by the United States as a collaborator of the Tehran regime in the logistical support of terrorist activities.
The Argentine adventure of the jumbo jet called “Luisa Cáceres De Arismendi” —the name of a heroine of Venezuelan independence— began last Monday, when was scheduled to land in Ezeiza on a flight from Mexico with a stopover in Caracas. But the fog played a trick on him and the 747 was diverted to the Córdoba airport. The trip was completed in the afternoon, with improved visibility conditions.
After 48 hours in Ezeiza, on Wednesday afternoon, took off bound for Caracas. But after almost 45 minutes of flight —20 of them over the Río de la Plata— returned for “unknown reasons”. then the jumbo was held in Ezeizaamid rumors, tweets and multiple screenshots taken by spotters (aeronautical photography enthusiasts).
The crew with which the plane made the trip to Argentina also it would be mixed, with seven Iranians and nine Venezuelans. On Friday night, the Ministry of Security of the Nation —through the Airport Security Police— confirmed that it controlled the crew and the cargo, and verified that the 747 was loaded with spare parts for cars. Little is known, however, about the role in the dispatch of the flight of each member of the large crew.
Emtrasur is a cargo company created by the Nicolás Maduro regime as a subsidiary of Conviasa, the Venezuelan state airline that It has other planes previously operated by Mahan Air, in another sign of the close link between Caracas and the Iranian regime. The 747 retained in Ezeiza, since its incorporation to Emtrasur, has made trips to Havana, Managua, Tehran and Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guineaamong other destinations.
LGP
