A former techno DJ is in jail after admitting to selling over 60,000 fake airplane parts to commercial airline companies around the world. A court in the United Kingdom sentenced 38-year-old Jose Alejandro Zamora Yrala to 56 months in prison for the scheme that even law enforcement officials had trouble comprehending.
“Zamora’s operation risked public safety on a global scale in a way that defies belief,” Emma Luxton, director of operations for the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO), said in a statement. In December 2025, Luxton also described the crime as a “significant and audacious fraud [that] threatened trust in the aviation industry and risked public safety on a global scale.”
The con was only one facet of a nearly $53 million fraud campaign run under a shell company called AOG Technics. Between 2019 and 2023, Zamora used his personal computer to doctor actual safety certifications that he then attached to unlicensed plane engine components. Most of these were intended for the CFM56—the world’s most common commercial aircraft engine that powers all Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 planes.
To maintain the facade of a real business, Zamora also created fake employee aliases that he used to handle customer correspondences. Within four years, Zamora and AOG amassed over $9.3 million from sales orders to both manufacturers, as well as prominent commercial companies like American Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines.
AOG’s product listings claimed many of their engine parts came directly from Safran, a legitimate equipment manufacturer based in France. Zamora’s fakes were only discovered in 2023 after the airline TAP Air Portugal contacted Safran to authenticate a product purchased from AOG. Realizing the extent of the situation, international aviation safety administrations soon grounded any planes associated with Zamora’s scam. Although flights soon resumed normally, the emergency caused chaos for countless travelers while costing airline companies an estimated $53 million.
“This significant and audacious fraud threatened trust in the aviation industry and risked public safety on a global scale,” Luxton said late last year.
