Six Americans who had been detained in Venezuela in recent months have freed by the government of President Nicolás Maduro after he met with a senior Trump administration official.

A Venezuelan businessman who helped hide almost $17 million in bribe payments by an ally of President Nicolas Maduro was sentenced to six months in prison Friday by a federal judge who expressed frustration that his cooperation with law enforcement was undone by President Joe Biden’s recent pardon of a top U.S. criminal target.

The United States agreed to free a close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in exchange for 10 Americans imprisoned there.

A US-Venezuela prisoner swap was ongoing on Wednesday between Nicolas Maduro, who is wanted for narcotrafficking in the U.S., and President Joe Biden’s administration.

Prosecutors played wiretaps in federal court in New York showing a federal narcotics agent leaked sensitive case information about one of Washington’s top criminal targets in Venezuela — Alex Saab.

Newly unsealed court records show that a Colombian businessman linked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was secretly signed up by the Drug Enforcement Administration as a cooperating source in 2018 and gave agents information about bribes he paid to Venezuelan officials.

A businessman accused of siphoning off millions in state contracts from Venezuela has pleaded not guilty in a high profile case that’s strained relations between Washington and Caracas.

A businessman accused of siphoning off millions in state contracts from Venezuela met secretly with U.S. law enforcement to provide intelligence against Nicolás Maduro’s government prior to being charged.

Knowledgeable sources and message exchanges reveal that Venezuela’s government quietly offered last year to release imprisoned Americans in exchange for the U.S. letting go a key financier of President Nicolás Maduro.

Federal prosecutors have unveiled criminal charges against an alleged corruption ring accused of paying millions of dollars in bribes to a top ally of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to profit from lucrative contracts to import food and medicine at a time of widespread hardship in the South American country.

After Álex Saab was in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused the U.S. of kidnapping him and Cabo Verde of torturing him.

A businessman who prosecutors say was a major conduit for corruption by Nicolás Maduro’s inner circle has appeared for the first time in Miami federal court after an extradition that has further strained relations between the U.S. and Venezuela’s socialist government.

Maduro fights with U.S. to get Alex Saab out of Cape Verde

Trump signed an executive order deferring for 18 months the removal of more than 145,000 Venezuelans who were at risk of being sent back to their crisis-wracked homeland. He cited the “deteriorative condition” within Venezuela that constitutes a national security threat as the basis for his decision. The Trump administration was the first of now more than 50 countries in the world to recognize Guaidó as Venezuela’s president shortly after the young lawmaker rose up to challenge Maduro’s rule two years ago. More than 700 Venezuelans have been removed from the U.S. since 2018, while 11,000 more are under deportation proceedings, according to the TRAC immigration data base of Syracuse University. All are accused of helping the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA evade earlier U.S. sanctions designed to stop the president from profiting from crude sales.

There is an economic relationship; the murkier aspects have attracted the scrutiny of the U.S. Treasury Department. There is solidarity in their anti-U.S. rhetoric, even if the United States is a key trading partner of Turkey. The alliance was on display Tuesday when Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu visited Caracas to sign agreements and mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. We should keep going," the Turkish foreign minister said. In an analysis for the Washington-based Wilson Center, he described the relationship between Turkey and Venezuela as an alliance of convenience."

A man wearing a face mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic passes a mural of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, July 22, 2020. There may well be a collective sigh of relief in Venezuela from those he targeted, said Michael Diaz, a Miami defense attorney who has litigated against Nadler on behalf of Venezuelan clients. In June, he secured the arrest in Cape Verde of Colombian businessman Alex Saab as Maduros alleged front man was en route to Iran. Nadler, who still has a few weeks on the job, has not indicted Saab for the alleged food corruption. Nadler began working Venezuela cases in 2017, and Diaz said he quickly won a reputation as an aggressive prosecutor who had a good rapport with agents.

Alex Saab's arrest Friday while en route to Iran was a major blow to President Nicols Maduro's government. It was unclear how American authorities, who had been targeting the Colombian businessman for years, finally caught up with him. In March, it indicted Maduro and more than a dozen other individuals on narcoterrorist, corruption and other criminal charges. The U.S. Treasury Department alleges some of Saabs contracts were obtained by paying bribes to the adult children of Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores, Yoswal, Yosser and Walter Flores. Iran sent Venezuela several tankers of gasoline last month that government opponents say were purchased with gold and by shell companies controlled by Saab.