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The founder of a company accused of selling counterfeit jet engine parts used in planes around the world is a Venezuelan former techno DJ who recently married his wife in a luxury wedding in Mallorca.
Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala, 35, is the founder of AOG Technics, a London-based company that allegedly supplied parts with falsified paperwork that ended up in at least 126 commercial aircraft engines around the world.
Leading US airlines including Delta and United have been forced to ground planes affected by the scandal and a global investigation is underway to identify other planes fitted with the suspect parts. Aircraft in Europe, Australia and China have also been affected.
Photos discovered by DailyMail.com of Yrala’s wedding to his wife, Sarah Leddin, 33, in April last year offer the first glimpse of the elusive businessman since the scandal broke.
Yrala and Leddin married in April last year in an exclusive resort on the Spanish island of Mallorca, in the Mediterranean Sea. The couple reportedly wore matching Rolex watches to the wedding, which was attended by dozens of family members from both Venezuela and Ireland, where Leddin is from.
Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala (right), 35, is the founder of AOG Technics, a London-based company that allegedly supplied aircraft parts with fake paperwork that ended up in at least 126 commercial aircraft engines around the world
Before entering the aviation industry around 2010, Yrala was an aspiring techno DJ and music producer performing under the name Santa Militia (photo: a promo photo from his Soundcloud profile)
Before entering the aviation industry around 2010, Yrala was an aspiring techno DJ and music producer performing under the name Santa Militia.
A profile on the artist website Resident Advisor says Yrala started playing techno events in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, in 2005 before moving to Europe in 2010 and performing in countries such as Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom.
He is now at the center of one of the airline industry’s biggest scandals in recent years.
AOG Technics, which was founded in Britain in 2015, is alleged to have supplied thousands of parts with false paperwork to other companies that airlines use for aircraft maintenance.
AOG Technics is said to have invented employees with fake profiles to boost its image and also rented ‘virtual’ offices near Buckingham Palace to give it an exclusive address.
The parts were used in CFM56 engines, the world’s best-selling jet engine, used in aircraft including Airbus A320 models and the Boeing 737.
CFM International has now taken AOG to court in London. Yrala has not publicly commented on the scandal and his location is unknown.
His wife told him Bloombergwho first reported on the scandal, that the outlet was “trying to portray him as a bad person or something.”
“He doesn’t want to talk to anyone because the information is fabricated at best,” she said.
Yrala began his career in the aviation industry in 2010, when he joined an aircraft engine maintenance company, AJW, Bloomberg reported. He later joined the UK arm of GA Telesis LLC, a Florida-based aerospace company, before founding AOG in 2015.
Most of the parts ended up in CFM56 engines, the world’s best-selling jet engine, used in aircraft including Airbus A320 models and the Boeing 737
LinkedIn profiles for employees who allegedly worked at AOG Technics contain stock photos that appear elsewhere on the Internet. One profile was for a man named Ray Kwong, who was listed as the company’s Chief Commercial Officer
The image of Kwong is a stock photo that also appears elsewhere on the Internet, including on a textile website that lists the man as a “factory owner” named Wang
Bloomberg quoted a person familiar with his routine as saying that Yrala usually worked from home using a platform that connects buyers and sellers of aircraft parts.
Company documents signed by Yrala in the United Kingdom show that AOG Technics had approximately $3 million in assets as of 2022, indicating the size of the operation.
CFM, the company whose engines were affected by the scandal, said there have been no reports of the use of counterfeit parts. Instead, the problem centers on thousands of parts with suspected fake documentation. Some have gone unnoticed for years.
AOG is accused of selling some of the used parts as brand new, making a huge profit while jeopardizing the safety of passengers on planes with affected engines.
In one case, paperwork on the sale of a key component, a low-pressure turbine, to a Florida company in 2019 was signed by a man named “Geoffrey Chirac,” who is believed to be a non-existent employee of AOG Technics.
According to CFM court documents, the alarm was first raised on June 21 when TAP Air Portugal’s maintenance department said it had concerns about documentation for a small part, a so-called silencer, that it had obtained from AOG Technics.
“The part appeared to be older than depicted,” CFM said.
The birth certificate that must accompany each aerospace unit contained a forged signature, according to a court filing detailing the extent of the detective operation.
According to CFM, within 20 days the same airline had found 24 forms from the same vendor with ‘significant differences’.
AOG told a British court last month that it was “fully cooperating” with investigations without commenting on CFM’s claims.
The company enhanced its image by using a ‘virtual’ office in central London, just a few minutes’ walk from Buckingham Palace. In reality, AOG Technics does not have a physical presence there and appears to have simply rented a mailing address for just $150 per month.
Documents show the company was founded in 2015 and was initially listed at a residential address in the seaside town of Hove, in southern England.
LinkedIn profiles for employees who allegedly worked at AOG Technics contain stock photos that appear elsewhere on the Internet, including in promotional materials for other companies. Many of the LinkedIn accounts have now been deleted.
One profile was for a man named Ray Kwong, who was listed as the company’s Chief Commercial Officer. Kwong mentioned previous experiences at Mitsubishi and Nissan, but neither has been able to confirm he was employed by them.
His photo shows a gray-haired man in a neat shirt with a striped blue tie. The same image also appears on other web pages, including that of a textile company that claims the man is a “factory owner” named Wang.
Another employee was listed on LinkedIn as Martina Spencer, believed to be an account manager for AOG Technics. Her photo appears to be another stock photo of a woman whose image was also used in an Amazon listing for women’s reading glasses.
The company also boosted its image by using a ‘virtual’ office in central London, just a few minutes’ walk from Buckingham Palace.
Business records in Britain show that the company’s first official address was a small house in the seaside town of Hove, in southern England. It then occupied a second residential building in Hove before moving to London in 2017, eventually settling in The Nova Building.
Although developers of aircraft parts are strictly regulated and require separate approval to produce them, no formal permission is required to set up warehouses to distribute them.
The scandal raises serious questions about industry procedures designed to prevent unapproved parts from ending up on aircraft.
Phil Seymour, chief executive of UK aviation consultancy IBA, said: ‘This is not a new problem in the sector. There have always been people who wanted to make money with aircraft parts.
‘The big problem here is that these parts have found their way into engines; that is the game-changer for me.’