Madrid/Vladimir Putin may be ultimately responsible for the wave of irregular migrants to the United States from India through Nicaragua. This is what sources believe 14ymedio in Libya and the North African country’s own press. On June 13, the State Department announced visa restrictions on an airline executive accused of “facilitating irregular migration.” Although Washington did not specify, for legal reasons, the name of the sanctioned person, the Nicaraguan press has come to the conclusion that it is Mohamed Ben Ayad, a Libyan businessman who until recently was the owner of Ghadames Airlines.
The company, however, has just been sold to one of the sons of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the leader of eastern Libya, who has also recently bought another airline, Berniq Air. Sources of 14ymedio In Tripoli, they say the two companies are registered in the names of front men for the Haftar family, whose patriarch is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Both the Italian and Libyan press have put the company’s suspicious trips to Managua in the spotlight, which usually covers a few routes in North Africa and Turkey, and emphasize “that its flights to Nicaragua have no commercial purposes, and that they are likely one of Moscow’s ways of pushing migrants towards the US border to undermine Joe Biden’s election campaign; or a message to the White House about the damage Russia could cause through its allies.”
“They are probably one of Moscow’s ways of pushing migrants towards the US border to undermine Joe Biden’s election campaign; or a message to the White House”
At least five company flights have landed in Managua since the end of February, with each one carrying between 300 and 400 passengers, almost entirely Indians, raising alarm bells in the State Department. Two of them departed from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, stopping in Tripoli, while the remaining three came from Benina International Airport, in the city of Benghazi (Libya), where the airline is based. The company, founded in 2021, used a Boeing 777-200 with registration 5A-GRS to complete these flights lasting approximately 14 hours.
The most recent flight arrived, carrying almost 400 passengers, on June 4, after departing the previous day from Tripoli. It was preceded by the one that landed in Managua on May 23 (NJ1003) with 320 alleged migrants and, after this, one in which 350 more were traveling, on May 18, both from Benghazi. On February 28, the first trip took place (the only one with a different number, NJ1008) and, on March 14, the second, according to the information compiled by 14ymedio in Libya, both with about 300 other travelers. According to sources at the Managua airport, the company charges between 230,000 and 250,000 dollars for each flight operated and each ticket is around 10,000 dollars, so the profit is gigantic.
According to the same informant, Legend Airlines, from Romania, Universal Sky Carrier, Aruba Airlines, Conviasa, Sky High Aviation Services and Air Century also operate this type of flights, although there is only specific data on the transportation of Asian passengers, especially Indians. , via Legend Airlines. In the case of the other companies, only data appears on flights within the American continent, which are dedicated to taking Cubans, Haitians or Venezuelans to Managua, to undertake the “volcano route” to the United States.
The company charges between $230,000 and $250,000 for each flight operated and each ticket is around $10,000, so the profit is gigantic.
Legend Airlines was at the center of the controversy in December 2023, when one of its ships was detained in Vatry (France). Then, during a technical stop, the authorities suspected that the 300 people traveling on it were irregular Indian migrants. All of them were repatriated, exposing a network that also included the Egyptian Alexandria Airlines, found in January 2024 transporting 370 Indian and Moroccan passengers to the Augusto César Sandino in Managua.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua and the airport authorities remain silent after being consulted by the newspaper Le Monde about these new routes of Asian and North African migrants.
The economist and political analyst José Dávila Membreño told the newspaper Office 505 that individual sanctions could have more effect than appears at first glance. “It may not seem like a sanction to a businessman, but that businessman is said to work with other companies as well, so you have to see the entire chain he manages, the effects it can have, and it cannot be ruled out that later sanctions against the companies will come. airline companies themselves and then with the governments that lend themselves or with the coyote states like Nicaragua.”
In November 2021, the government of Daniel Ortega began to establish itself as an exit platform for Cubans leaving the island by exempting them from visa requirements. According to analysts, this has been used for a double purpose: to pressure the US to relax the sanctions it maintains against the Managua regime and to make money from the business generated by the number of people moving around the country.
After the Cuban experience, which had the connivance of the Havana regime in its need for an escape valve for its citizens and pressure on the United States, other migrants began to resort to the same path, fundamentally Haitians, but also Venezuelans and others. countries of the continent. Little by little, the route has continued to be filled with migrants from China, Russia, India and several African countries.
The US threatened to impose sanctions on airlines transporting migrants, causing some to back down, although there are still regular routes (Conviasa from Cuba), and especially charter airlines, which increasingly make these trips from Middle Eastern countries.
“The resolution will have strong language. We are not going to abandon the people of Nicaragua,” Washington’s ambassador to the organization has warned.
This Wednesday the 54th General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) begins in Paraguay, in which the United States plans to carry out a resolution condemning Nicaragua that demands the Ortega Government to stop systematic violations of human rights. “The resolution will have strong language. We are not going to abandon the people of Nicaragua,” Washington’s ambassador to the organization, Francisco Mora, has warned.
However, this issue that is troubling the White House will not be addressed, the diplomat confirmed. “It hasn’t come up explicitly. But I would say that, in conversations that are being had, there is definitely concern and awareness about the issue, although no specific actions will be taken regarding irregular migration from Nicaragua at this time,” Mora told the Nicaraguan media.The Press last Thursday.
Brian Nichols, head of the US State Department for Latin America, insisted on the same line this Tuesday. “It is unacceptable that people try to take advantage of Nicaragua as a springboard to enter the United States. And the measures of the (Daniel) Ortega (and Rosario) Murillo regime to promote that are worrying. “We are going to continue using all the tools we have to block irregular migration,” he stated.
