“The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela reports the deportation of the citizen of Colombian nationality Alex Naim Saab Morán, carried out this Saturday, May 16, 2026,” Saime indicated in its X account.
In a brief message, the organization specified that the measure was adopted because Saab “is involved in the commission of various crimes in the United States of America, as is public, notorious and communicational.”
Saab was detained in Caracas in February during a joint operation by US and Venezuelan authorities, according to a US law enforcement official at the time, Reuters news agency reported.
“The Money Man”
At the time, the CBS network, the BBC’s partner in the United States, reported that Saab’s arrest had been carried out by the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin), as confirmed by Venezuelan sources.
Saab’s arrest would have occurred in a joint operation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and would have as its objective the possible extradition of Saab to the United States.
According to the Reuters agency, a US official confirmed that Saab’s arrest was carried out in a joint operation between agents from Venezuela and the US, a country where he is expected to be sent soon.
In an appearance before the US Senate, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, referred to Alex Saab as the “money man” or the “front man” of Nicolás Maduro.
Saab became an important player in Venezuela during the Maduro government, initially being linked to housing construction.
Then he was in charge of the distribution of “Clap” food bags, a mechanism created by the authorities to centralize imports that were then distributed to the population under the scheme of the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP).
His participation in both businesses has been questioned for alleged acts of corruption.
Saab’s deportation is an example of the changes that have occurred in Venezuela since the military operation carried out there by the US government on January 3, during which Maduro was detained along with his wife, Cilia Flores.
From then on, the reins of the Executive remained in the hands of Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who has constantly moved between two waters: while declaring her loyalty to the deposed ruler and the socialist project of Hugo Chávez, sealing agreements with the government of Donald Trump and agreeing to their demands.
From foreign businessman to minister
The Venezuelan investigative journalistic portal Armando.Info revealed that Saab received US$159 million from the Venezuelan government to import housing materials between 2012 and 2013, but supposedly only delivered products for the equivalent of US$3 million.
For their part, the US authorities assure that the homes run by Saab were not built and, if they were, it was with cost overruns.
In the case of food, journalistic investigations published in 2018 revealed that Saab and another Colombian businessman, Álvaro Enrique Pulido Vargas, had benefited from million-dollar contracts with the Maduro government in the CLAP.
A year later, the US Department of Justice accused Saab and Pulido of having laundered up to US$350 million that they allegedly defrauded through the exchange control system in Venezuela.
But Saab’s weight in Maduro’s government continued to increase.
In June 2020, the Colombian businessman was detained in Cape Verde, an African archipelago where the private plane he was traveling on made a stopover to refuel while en route to Caracas from Tehran.
At that time, Saab was accused of money laundering and other crimes by the United States, while in several countries, including Colombia, he was identified as one of the main figureheads of different corruption schemes within the Venezuelan government.
By then, the importance that Saab had acquired became evident in the efforts made by the Maduro government to achieve his release. Caracas denounces the arrest as a “kidnapping” and organizes an international solidarity campaign. In addition, he tries to give him diplomatic protection by appointing him ambassador.
These efforts fail to prevent him from being extradited to the United States, where he spends two years in prison until he is released in December 2023 thanks to a detainee exchange agreed with the Joe Biden government, which included the release of around twenty people, among whom there were 10 Americans imprisoned in Venezuela.
Both the Maduro government and Saab himself always rejected all accusations against them.
Upon his return to Caracas, Saab was named the new Minister of Industry and National Production of Venezuela, a position from which he was recently dismissed by the president in charge, Delcy Rodríguez.
Arrest of Raúl Gorrín
According to the Colombian press, Venezuelan authorities also detained businessman Raúl Gorrín, owner of the Globovisión television channel and an insurance company in Venezuela, who was accused in 2018 by the United States of having allegedly paid some US$159 million in bribes to two former high-ranking Venezuelan officials and having helped them launder these illicit funds.
At that time, US authorities seized at least 24 properties in Florida and New York that were in the name of Gorrín and his companies, with an estimated value of US$77 million, according to a report by Transparencia Venezuela.
The accusation against the Venezuelan magnate, presented in a court in the Southern District of Florida, also maintains that Gorrín partnered with a Venezuelan banker to buy a financial institution in the Dominican Republic “for the purpose of laundering money and paying bribes to Venezuelan officials.”
In January 2019, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions against seven Venezuelan citizens, including Gorrín, whom it accused of being part of a corruption scheme that diverted billions of dollars in public funds to benefit people close to the Venezuelan government.
Gorrín also faces investigations in Spain and Switzerland.
*With information from Daniel Pardo.
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