UK fraud investigators have disclosed that a small company generated £6.9 million ($9.3 million) in revenues from selling unapproved engine parts, mainly for CFM International CFM56s.
The Serious Fraud Office has detailed the figures after the director of the company, AOG Technics, was sentenced following a conviction for forging authorised release certificates for spares.
Over 60,000 engine parts were sold, accompanied by the inauthentic certificates, over the course of January 2019 to July 2023.
The company took over £7.7 million in revenues in this four-year interval, of which 90% was derived from fraud, the office states.
AOG Technics’ fraud was discovered after an airline contacted CFM partner Safran to check the authenticity of a component.
The office states that the subsequent financial impact, notably from grounding aircraft, amounted to some £39 million – with carriers including American Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines affected.
According to the Serious Fraud Office, AOG Technics director Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala would “doctor” genuine certificates and create false shipment documents to indicate that the company had purchased parts directly from Safran and other manufacturers.
He also created the “illusion of a legitimate business”, the office adds, with documents signed by “fake employees” and “fabricated” sales managers. Zamora Yrala has been sentenced to four years and eight months’ imprisonment.
