Colombian businessman Alex Saab, widely considered to be Nicolás Maduro’s top money launderer, was arrested in Caracas on Wednesday as part of a join U.S. – Venezuela operation, several outlets reported.
Both Colombia’s Caracol Radio and El Colombiano, citing unnamed sources, report Saab was apprehended during a joint operation between the FBI and Venezuelan authorities.
Reuters, citing a U.S. law enforcement official, also reported on the joint U.S.-Venezuela operation to arrest Saab, who is expected to be extradited to the United States “in the coming days.”
Alex Saab, 54, had been originally arrested by U.S. law enforcement in Cape Verde in 2020 and was undergoing trial proceedings on charges of using the U.S. financial system to launder $350 million from Venezuelan state coffers.
The United States, during President Donald Trump’s first term, sanctioned Saab in 2019 for his role in the Venezuelan regime’s corrupt CLAP food program.
Former President Joe Biden released him and returned him to Venezuela in December 2023 as part of a prisoner swap deal with Maduro. The Biden Administration claimed at the time Saab’s release would allegedly help curb the large flow of Venezuelan migrants entering the United States by addressing the “root causes of migration.”
File/20 December 2023/ Nicolás Maduro (r), President of Venezuela, greets Alex Saab, Colombian businessman. The government of U.S. President Joe Biden released a confidant of Venezuela’s head of state Maduro from prison. (Jesus Vargas/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Nicolás Maduro gave Saab a “hero’s welcome” upon his return to Caracas. Maduro later appointed Saab to be his Industries Minister, a position Saab held up until mid-January when “acting President” of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez had him removed from the office.
At press time, no official from Venezuela’s socialist regime has neither confirmed nor denied the arrest of Alex Saab. His lawyer, Luigi Giuliano, claimed to the Colombian newspaper El Espectador that reports of Saab’s arrest are “fake news” and that “he is calm in Caracas.”
Speaking to reporters at a Wednesday night press conference, the head of the socialist-controlled National Assembly Jorge Rodríguez reportedly avoided answering a question on Saab’s capture.
“I am a congressman; this is not within my area of expertise, and I have no authority or information regarding the matter you are raising,” Rodríguez said.
In addition to Saab, both Caracol Radio and Reuters reported that Venezuelan businessman Raúl Gorrín was also arrested during the joint operation.
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Gorrín, a fugitive man widely believed to have held close ties to Nicolás Maduro, was charged by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida in 2024 for his involvement in a $1.2-billion money laundering scheme.
In 2013, Gorrín purchased an 80-percent majority stake of Globovision, Venezuela’s only private news channel and an erstwhile fierce critic of the socialist regime. The channel has since then changed its critical stance of the regime and replaced it with a “centrist” stance.
The Trump administration sanctioned Gorrín in 2019, accusing him of corruption and of taking advantage of Venezuela’s strict foreign currency exchange controls to illicitly obtain more than $2.4 billion in corrupt proceeds.
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