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Another plane with links to Venezuelan President Maduro is being investigated in the Dominican Republic

Another plane with links to Venezuelan President Maduro is being investigated in the Dominican Republic

A second plane linked to Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is being investigated in the Dominican Republic, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.

This second aircraft, a Dassault Falcon 2000 with registration number YV3360, is similar to the plane seized by US authorities on Monday and appears on a US Treasury Department list of sanctioned goods owned by Maduro.

Both planes were sent to Santo Domingo for maintenance in recent months, the source told CNN.

The plane, which U.S. authorities seized on Monday, was described by authorities as Venezuela's equivalent of Air Force One and has been seen on previous state visits by Maduro around the world.

The seizure came after the acquisition of the plane was found to have violated U.S. sanctions, among other things. Two U.S. officials said the U.S. flew the plane to Florida on Monday.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement: “The Department of Justice has seized an aircraft that we allege was illegally purchased for $13 million through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States for use by Nicolás Maduro and his cronies.”

The Venezuelan government described the seizure of the first Falcon in a statement on Monday as “piracy” and accused Washington of escalating “aggression” against Maduro's government following the disputed presidential election in July this year.

Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader said the plane seized on Monday was not registered in the name of the Venezuelan government but in “the name of an individual.”

The country's Attorney General's Office received an order from a national court last May to “shut down” the plane, according to Dominican Republic Foreign Minister Roberto Álvarez. The United States had requested the shutdown so it could search the plane for “evidence and items related to fraudulent activities, smuggling of goods for illegal purposes and money laundering,” he said.

Monday's seizure in the Dominican Republic marked an escalation as the U.S. continues to investigate alleged corrupt practices by the Venezuelan government.

“This sends a message all the way to the top,” one of the U.S. officials told CNN. “The seizure of a foreign head of state's aircraft is unheard of in criminal matters. We are sending a clear message here that no one is above the law, no one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions.”

In addition, the United States recently put pressure on the Venezuelan government to “immediately” publish concrete data on the presidential elections because it doubts the credibility of Maduro’s claimed victory in the recent presidential election.

Venezuela's opposition has released more than 80 percent of the results printed and collected from voting machines across the country. Although the documentation is incomplete, it appears to show that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia did indeed win the election, several experts told CNN.

Previous reporting by CNN's Priscilla Alvarez.

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