MIAMI – In a bizarre turn, a 52-year-old Colombian businessman with friends in high places went from sleeping in a federal prison in Miami to recently celebrating his appointment as Venezuela’s new minister of industry and national production.
Alex Saab, also known as Alex Nain Saab Morán, is of Arab descent. He was born three days before Christmas Eve in Barranquilla, a seaport city that attracted Syro-Lebanese and Jewish migrants during the social upheaval of the late 19th century.
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U.S. federal investigators reported Saab was in his 30s when he paid “bribes and kickbacks” to Venezuelan officials for “overvalued” government contracts, including one to build 25,000 homes valued at three to four times the actual cost of building each home — and as his network expanded he even paid bribes to Maduro’s three stepsons. Univision reported the late Colombian Sen. Piedad Córdoba, a close ally of Maduro, helped Saab.
In his 40s, Saab allegedly found an opportunity with Venezuela’s subsidized “CLAP” food program, criticized as a political tool of substandard nutritional value. Investigators reported that Saab once again accessed no-bid overvalued contracts with some prepayments and used businesses in Mexico and Hong Kong, and a Venezuelan state-owned company in Táchira with the approval of Venezuelan officials to do so.
U.S. investigators also believe Saab worked with a Venezuelan politician to help officials liquidate gold mined in Venezuela and convert it into foreign currency. He allegedly created a structure to sell the gold to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. In 2017, the U.S. Treasury issued an advisory warning about the corrupt use of currency controls, limiting the supply of U.S. dollars.
In 2018, the U.S. issued an advisory reporting officials were misappropriating state assets and engaging in narcotrafficking. In 2019, the U.S. blamed corrupt political figures for “the dire humanitarian situation” in Venezuela. Federal investigators later referred to Saab as “a profiteer orchestrating a vast corruption network” while “callously” exploiting “Venezuela’s starving population.”
Saab was indicted for money laundering in the Southern District of Florida on July 25, 2019. He was in a private jet when he was arrested during a refueling stop on June 12, 2020, in Cape Verde. Venezuelan officials claimed Saab had been a special envoy since 2018, and he was entitled to diplomatic immunity since he was on his way to Iran on an official humanitarian mission.
Saab lost his long fight in court, and Cape Verde extradited him to the U.S. on Oct. 16, 2021. He appeared in U.S. federal court in Miami two days later before U.S. Magistrate Judge John J. O’Sullivan. Federal agents in Miami — the DEA, the FBI, and Homeland Security Investigation — were involved in the case.
Saab pleaded not guilty. He spent over three and a half years in federal prison while his attorneys continued to argue diplomatic immunity. Negotiations between the U.S. and Venezuela favored him. According to the White House, Maduro and the opposition signed the Barbados Agreement on Oct. 17, 2023. The U.S. then lifted some sanctions.
On Sept. 27, 2023, United Nations experts urged U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration to free Saab because he was in “detention awaiting trial for alleged conduct which is not considered an international crime” and alleged Saab’s health was suffering while under “substandard conditions of detention, including poor quality of food and inadequate medical treatment” while at the Federal Detention Center in Miami.
On Dec. 20, President Joe Biden announced Venezuela released 10 Americans, and fugitive Leonard Francis. That same day, senior administration officials said that after several months of negotiations, Biden granted Saab clemency and allowed him to return to Venezuela while Maduro “also agreed to release 20 Venezuelan prisoners” and suspend three arrest warrants.
Maduro welcomed Saab back to Caracas as a hero.
In January, Maduro announced he appointed Saab president of Venezuela’s International Center for Productive Investment, or CIIP, to attract foreign capital. On Friday, Maduro announced on Telegram that he had appointed Saab to his Cabinet to oversee “the development of the entire industrial system of Venezuela.” Saab was his new minister of industry and national production.
“It’s safe to say that with his great capacity to manage and compromise with our people, he will drive the development of the industrial system of Venezuela,” Maduro wrote in Spanish.