expenses. In 1996, Corporacion Alas de Venezuela (CAV), a private company owned by Nelson Ramiz, a Cuban-born US citizen and his Venezuelan wife, Haydhelm Emilia Valesquez Morales, bought the assets from the liquidator, at an auction in Caracas on September 27, 1997, in a transaction that led to litigation in New York and Caracas. The purchase was funded by an investment company Alas International Limited ("Alas"). Instead of delivering the purchased assets to Alas, as required by the funding agreement, CAV restarted airline operations on January 7, 1998, using the purchased assets without permission from Alas. Alas launched a series of lawsuits against Ramiz, Valesquez, CAV and Aeropostal and on November 2, 1998, the US Supreme Court of New York found in favor of Alas, a judgement later confirmed on appeal. The essence of the judgement was that neither Ramiz, Morales, CAV or the airline had any economic or legal interest in the various assets purchased in 1997, including the aircraft and the trade name "Aeropostal". As a result, CAV, the airline and Ramiz entered into a settlement agreement on February 29, 2000, filed and entered at the New York Supreme Court with Index No. 601817/97 under which title of the aircraft transferred to the Alas owners but Alas allowed the airline to continue flying the aircraft in return for various payments. CAV and Aeropostal subsequently defaulted on the settlement and further litigation followed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York under case reference 652688/2012, as a result of which, CAV and Aeropostal owe the successors to Alas very significant damages. As of March 2007, Aeropostal had 2,319 employees. Flights to the United States began in July 1998 and to Madrid in November 2001, although the latter have since ceased. In the late 1990s, Aeropostal introduced two leased Irish-registered Airbus A320-200s to fly alongside the fleet of DC-9, McDonnell Douglas MD-83 and Boeing 727-200 jets. At the end of 2007, Nelson Ramiz (then CEO) reduced the fleet of 22 to only 3 claiming that the currency controls imposed by the Venezuelan government prevented him from maintaining the fleet, and that fare controls kept Aeropostal from making a profit. During that period, the Venezuelan Government planned on shutting down the airline if major changes were not planned. The National Institute of Civil Aviation temporarily grounded Aeropostal operations, leaving thousands of passengers stranded in the high-travel holiday season. As