From his home office in a tranquil English village just outside London, Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala spent years selling 60,000 jet-engine components with fabricated paperwork that trickled into every corner of the global aviation industry. Working with a Spanish graphic designer and an employee of TAP Air Portugal , the part-time DJ doctored PDF certificates on his computer and duped the safety-ob...
From his home office in a tranquil English village just outside London, Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala spent years selling 60,000 jet-engine components with fabricated paperwork that trickled into every corner of the global aviation industry. Working with a Spanish graphic designer and an employee of TAP Air Portugal , the part-time DJ doctored PDF certificates on his computer and duped the safety-obsessed aviation industry over the space of five years, according to court documents. The scandal led to a worldwide hunt for the falsified components on the most widely flown Airbus SE and Boeing Co. airliners and caused £40 million ($54 million) in damages. For Zamora Yrala, 38, the charade ended Monday at London’s Southwark Crown Court with a jail sentence of four years and eight months for fraudulent trading. The presiding judge, Simon Picken, called Zamora Yrala’s actions “reckless at best and utterly inexcusable.” Dressed in a navy three-piece suit, Zamora Yrala stood at the back of the courtroom behind a glass wall and spoke only to confirm his name at the start of the hearing. After the judge read out his prison sentence, he exited through a side door carrying a packed duffel bag, a prison van waiting on the other side. Documents released by prosecutors on the sentencing day paint a picture of a man who sought to give his outfit, AOG Technics Ltd., a veneer of respectability. On its now-deleted website, AOG boasted of warehouses in the UK, Singapore, Frankfurt and Miami, calling itself a “leading global aircraft support provider.” A quality-assurance organization endorsed by the US Federal Aviation Administration had accredited AOG’s practices. In reality, AOG was a shoestring operation run by Zamora Yrala from his home, aided by his now-ex wife, her brother and the family nanny, the documents show. Whereas customers received emails with names such as Michael Klein, a sales manager, and David Stevens, a quality director, none of these individuals were identified on t...