Venezuelan gold pilot pleads guilty for light sentence; U.S. keeps $5 million haul

Two Venezuelans charged with smuggling about $5 million worth of gold bars in a private plane to South Florida have cut plea deals with federal prosecutors to gain light prison sentences along with immediate deportation to Venezuela.

Pilot Victor Fossi Grieco, 51, pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to transport 230 pounds of gold hidden in the nose of the plane to Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. He was sentenced to the time he has served while in custody since his arrest in September.

His passenger, Jean Carlos Sanchez Rojas, 42, plans to plead guilty to the same charge later this week and is expected to receive similar punishment from U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga.

And who gets to the keep the valuable bars of gold? The U.S. government.

Both Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Berger and defense attorney Michael Rosen said the pilot was hired to transport the gold illegally out of Venezuela without declaring it in the United States, but said there was nothing nefarious about the conspiracy with his partner.

Berger said that Venezuela’s economic collapse, fueled by a worthless currency and hyperinflation, has fostered a black-market gold market to generate U.S. dollars to pay for everyday necessities such as food and medicine. The prosecutor said the pilot and the partner were secretly hauling the gold for a fee, but he declined to say who supplied the bars for the Venezuelan shipment to South Florida.

Fossi’s defense attorney, Rosen, told the judge that “this gold had nothing to do with any officials of Venezuela,” adding the shipment was a “private” deal.

As part of a major crackdown on the socialist government in Venezuela, the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned its state-run gold company.

Venezuela is rich in the precious metal — but because the nation’s gold industry is controlled by President Nicolas Maduro’s government and criminal gangs — few U.S. companies will purchase it. That means sellers must find other ways to access the lucrative U.S. gold market, such as forging documents that state the gold was mined legally in neighboring countries such as Colombia.

Miami has become a smuggling hub for such illegally mined “blood gold” that is purchased by U.S. refineries and ends up in jewelry and electronic devices sold by Fortune 500 companies to unsuspecting American consumers. The illicit pipeline was revealed in a 2018 Miami Herald series called “Dirty Gold, Clean Cash.”

This summer, the Herald, el Nuevo Herald and a team of international reporting partners published a follow-up series called “Smuggler’s Paradise” that laid out how Maduro’s regime props itself up with profits from illegal mining operations that destroy the rainforest, expose locals to mercury poisoning and are intertwined with violent guerrilla groups and the cocaine trade.

In the latest gold-smuggling case, Sanchez and Fossi were caught on Sept. 20 at the Fort Lauderdale Execuive Airport after flying from Caracas, Venezuela. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents saw loose rivets on the plane’s nose compartment and investigated further. The gold was hidden under a metal panel inside the nose, according to a criminal affidavit..

After being detained, Sanchez told federal agents that he obtained the gold from “multiple sources” in Venezuela and planned to sell it in the United States, according to the affidavit. He said he was working for an “organization [that] had previously smuggled gold into the U.S.” and expected to receive a fee.

Fossi said he met people in Venezuela to pick up the gold and stored it in the nose of the plane for two days before flying to Fort Lauderdale. He said he was to receive a commission for successful delivery of the smuggled metal, which weighed 230 pounds, according to federal agents.

Upon arrival in Fort Lauderdale, Sanchez and Fossi failed to declare the gold to Customs officials, the affidavit states. Sanchez and his wife were also carrying $24,000 in cash, which they declared.

The affidavit was signed by a Homeland Security Investigations special agent. HSI is helping lead a broader federal investigation into gold smuggled into the United States from illegal mines in Latin America. Nestor Yglesias, a spokesman for HSI, said the agency could not comment.

Miami Herald staff writer Nicholas Nehamas contributed to this report.