SFO secures conviction of company director for fraudulent trading of aircraft parts

On Monday, Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala, director of AOG Technics Ltd was sentenced to four years eight months in prison for fraudulent trading.  Zamora’s conviction follows a guilty plea entered in December and relates to findings that, from January 2019 to July 2023, AOG Technics sold over 60,000 aircraft engine parts worth £6.9 million accompanied by forged Authorised Release Certificates – documentation that guarantees airworthiness.  The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) reports that most of the parts AOG sold were for use in the CFM56 engine, the world’s most widely used commercial aircraft engine, commonly found on many models of Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 family aircraft, leading to AOG generating over £7.7 million in revenue – 90% from fraud – in just four years.  

Zamora’s conviction is some very welcome good publicity for the SFO, at a time of renewed speculation regarding the agency’s future following the unexpected announcement last month of Director Nick Ephgrave’s retirement in March and the recent announcement that the SFO has closed its long-running investigation of suspected bribery and corruption at London Mining Plc due to “difficulties obtaining and reviewing material and challenges with witness evidence”, issues that have repeatedly dogged the SFO in recent years, leading to a number of failed prosecutions and overturned convictions.  

A related investigation by Portuguese authorities and the SFO’s own proceeds of crime investigation (by which it will seek to recover property obtained through unlawful conduct) remain ongoing.

As we discussed last year, while this case does not appear to relate to anything more than a single, rogue operator, it serves as a stark warning of the ability of a single actor to disrupt an entire industry and cause huge risks to passenger safety globally.  Large numbers of aircraft operated by various major airlines across the UK and the world were grounded in 2023 after the CAA, FAA and EASA each issued safety alerts to airlines that may have bought or installed AOG Technics’ parts. This caused significant disruption to the airlines’ operations, resulting in millions of pounds in losses.

Recent media reports suggest that the use of counterfeit and uncertified parts within the aviation industry may be growing, particularly in Russia. As we noted in our last article, the effect of years of sanctions, which have effectively frozen the supply of genuine aircraft parts into the country, has given rise to widespread and legitimate concerns about the maintenance and airworthiness of Russia’s commercial fleet. This is likely to cause major headaches for UK, US and EU aviation regulators for years to come. Until then, operators, parts traders and maintenance providers must remain vigilant, not only to avoid purchasing counterfeit parts, but also to avoid inadvertently breaching the UK, US and EU sanctions regimes.

If you would like to discuss the impact of issues raised in this article on your business, please contact Chloe Challinor or Patrick Bettle of our aviation regulatory team, or Guy Bastable, Andrew Matheson or Sam Aldous of our corporate crime team.