Venezuelan law enforcement authorities have extradited to the United States Alex Nain Saab Moran, a former minister of industry and national production and a close associate of ousted President Nicolas Maduro. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced that Saab, 55, a Colombian national, was arraigned in a federal court in Miami on Monday. He is accused of leading a large-scale bribery, fraud and money laundering scheme that exploited the state-owned oil company and the country’s humanitarian welfare program, using the U.S. banking system to hide his tracks.
According to official prosecution documents, the fraud scheme was set up around 2015 to defraud the government’s humanitarian aid program, CLAP, which was designed to purchase and distribute food to the poorest and most vulnerable populations in Venezuela. Saab and his associates paid large bribes to senior officials in the Maduro regime to secure government supply contracts. The lawsuit alleges that instead of delivering the promised food products, the group operated a network of shell companies, issued fictitious invoices and falsified shipping records to embezzle hundreds of millions of dollars in program funds for their own personal gain.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General E. Tyson Dube explained the serious charges: “Alex Saab allegedly used U.S. banks to launder hundreds of millions of dollars stolen from a Venezuelan food program intended for the poor, along with profits from the illegal sale of Venezuelan oil. This is unacceptable. The Criminal Division will not allow foreign actors to exploit the U.S. financial system and use it as a safe haven for their corrupt profits.”
U.S. Attorney Jason E. Redding Kinyons added, “when illicit profits are channeled through the U.S. financial system, our courts have jurisdiction and our prosecutors will act.” The Justice Department said in a statement that Saab is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Saab’s attorney in Miami declined to comment to The Associated Press.
The story took a sharp turn in 2019 when the U.S. government imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela’s oil exports, crippling much of the country’s revenue and making it difficult for the regime to pay Saab and his associates for their food contracts. In response, Saab and his associates used their corrupt connections at the top of government to gain access to Direct to billions of dollars worth of oil stocks belonging to Venezuela’s state-owned oil company.
The group sold the oil on international markets under false pretenses, circumventing US sanctions, and used the profits to maintain and expand the original food fraud. The laundered funds were routed to US bank accounts, giving US authorities jurisdiction to handle the case.
This is not the first time Saab has been at the center of a legal battle with Washington. He was first indicted in the US in 2019, arrested in Cape Verde in 2020, and extradited to the US in 2021. However, in 2023, President Joe Biden granted him a formal presidential pardon as part of a broad prisoner swap deal with the Maduro regime.
Federal prosecutors are now clarifying that the current indictment and arrest relate to criminal actions and conduct not covered under that previous pardon. The current investigation is being conducted by a special task force of the US Homeland Security, which combines the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Homeland Security Investigations Agency.
The extradition and prosecution of Saab is another serious blow to the economic remnants of the ousted Maduro regime and a serious concern among other senior officials in the region about the long arm of the US law enforcement system. The case demonstrates that the US Department of Justice is determined to close the financial loopholes that allow authoritarian regimes to circumvent international sanctions by laundering money in the West.
If convicted in court, Saab faces a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison, with the US government already announcing that it will work to fully confiscate all assets, real estate and funds obtained through his criminal network.