CARACAS.– From keychain seller to “shadow minister” of the Nicolás Maduro regime, the Colombian Alex Saab It was a key piece of an exchange with which the United States achieved the freedom of twenty Venezuelan and American prisoners in Venezuela this Wednesday.
Saab (Barranquilla, 1971), accused of being a “front man” for Maduro, was on trial in Florida for money laundering through a feeding program of the Venezuelan regime.
Saab was arrested in Cape Verde in June 2020 and extradited to the United States in October 2021, amid the furious claim of the Venezuelan dictatorship, which denounced the “kidnapping” of an alleged “ambassador” of his country. It was not public until then that this businessman had Venezuelan nationality, much less that he had a diplomatic title.
The United States had been asking for the release of Americans and other Venezuelan political prisoners in exchange for the lifting of its sanctions against Venezuela.
“It is evident how important the name of Alex Saab is for Maduro,” said Roberto Deniz, a journalist for the investigative journalism portal Armando.info, who has written exhaustively about the case of Maduro’s alleged front man.
Deniz is the target of an arrest warrant in Venezuela for “incitement to hatred” for his allegations of corruption against the controversial contractor.
“Unfortunately with the exchange, which is more of a political negotiation, the justice takes a backseat and the United States destroys years of investigation against Saab for money laundering,” he added.
Ten Americans were released, including two who had been convicted of a failed invasion attempt on Venezuela in 2020. Another 14 Venezuelan “political prisoners” have been released so far.
“Spoiled” contractor of the regime
According to the complaints, Saab and his partner Álvaro Pulido, arrested in Venezuela last April for a corruption scandal in the state oil company PDVSA, would have transferred 350 million dollars from the Caribbean country to foreign accounts that they owned or controlled.
Saab faced up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Son of a Lebanese businessman settled in Barranquilla, Saab began as a seller of promotional keychains before entering the textile sectorwith 100 warehouses that exported to more than 10 countries, according to official biographies.
He started businesses in Venezuela in the construction industry. He signed his first contract in 2011 at the Miraflores presidential palace, when Hugo Chávez was president and Maduro was chancellor.
A young Saab with a ponytail went up to the stage and signed “a strategic alliance” for the “installation of kits for the construction of prefabricated homes.”
Although he said in 2017 that he did not know Maduro personally, Maduro’s rise to power in 2013 opened the doors for this businessman to become his “consented contractor” and later his “shadow plenipotentiary minister,” Deniz highlighted in a interview in 2021.
According to the journalist, Saab jumped from social housing to a contract to build gyms for 100 million dollars, paid in advance, and from there to one in the oil area with a “ghostly company” without much track record.
The former attorney general of Venezuela, the dissident Chavista Luisa Ortega, has classified him as the “main figurehead” of Maduro and his family.
“Hinge” with Iran and Russia
In 2016, Maduro created the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP), a subsidized food distribution plan at a time of shortages of more than two-thirds of basic products.
And Saab became one of his suppliers, achieving “important commercial agreements,” according to a series on his YouTube channel titled “Alex Saab, anti-blockade agent.”
In 2018, according to that version, he assumed “as a public official” the “mission” of acquiring in Russia and Iran “food, medicine, spare parts for refineries and different companies.”
Saab is blamed, for example, for importing Iranian fuel at a time of deep shortages.
“It was the hinge of many of these businesses” of Maduro with “allied countries,” Deniz highlighted.
Source: AFP
