A Colombian businessman, who’s an ally of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and other Caribbean politicians, was indicted on federal money-laundering charges that accuse him of bribing Venezuelan government officials and funneling more than $350 million to overseas accounts.
An indictment of Alex Nain Saab Moran, 47, was made public Thursday in Miami, hours after the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned him for corruptly helping the Maduro regime and others make hundreds of millions of dollars from a food-distribution network that’s supposed to serve starving people.
The charges relate not to the food network but to bribes Saab and a business partner allegedly paid to Venezuelan officials to build low-income housing units. Saab and the partner, Alvaro Pulido Vargas, 55, were charged with money laundering and conspiracy for conduct from 2011 to 2015.
The bribes helped the men gain “improper business advantages, including the approval of false and fraudulent documents related to the importation of construction goods and materials” and to access Venezuela’s foreign currency exchange system, according to the indictment.
Those goods and materials were never imported, and the men wired money from Venezuela to U.S. accounts and then overseas, the U.S. said. Prosecutors seek forfeiture of $350 million in U.S. currency, as well as $12.5 million seized previously on six occasions.
Abelardo De La Espriella, a lawyer for Saab, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Earlier on Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department said Saab paid bribes and kickbacks to government officials to win no-bid, overpriced contracts to import food ration boxes for poor Venezuelans. Rather than distribute the food to the needy, the Maduro regime often used it to reward supporters and punish political critics, the U.S. said. At the same time, Saab laundered hundreds of millions of dollars out of Venezuela, the Treasury said.
“Alex Saab engaged with Maduro insiders to run a wide scale corruption network they callously used to exploit Venezuela’s starving population,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “They use food as a form of social control, to reward political supporters and punish opponents, all while pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The food-aid program, known as CLAP, has become a key source of official embezzlement through overcharging for low-cost products, including Mexican and Turkish food staples, marked up more than 100% before being sold to needy Venezuelans. The deliveries have become so crucial that when they fail to arrive, violent protests erupt.
Saab and Pulido ran a network of shell companies that bought, assembled and shipped food to Venezuela for CLAP deals at highly profitable rates, bribing government officials to maintain access to the contracts, the U.S. said.
The Treasury Department also sanctioned Pulido and Maduro’s three stepsons, Walter, Yosser and Yoswal, saying the trio received kickbacks from Saab. Maduro’s son, Nicolas Maduro Guerra, was also sanctioned last month.
Saab’s relationship with the Venezuelan government made him one of the region’s most powerful men. In 2018, as Venezuela’s shortage of foreign exchange became acute, Saab worked with members of the government to sell Venezuelan gold to Turkey, the U.S. said.
This gold-for-food system is a multicountry, many-company scheme intended to obscure the flow of money and goods, Bloomberg Businessweek reported in April. Maduro was weathering extensive U.S. sanctions — mostly targeting individuals in his government accused of corruption, human-rights violations and other crimes — even as he risked further U.S. punishment over his dealings in gold.
Venezuela had been shipping freshly mined gold abroad for processing, primarily to Switzerland. Last year, Maduro began sending it to Turkey. He’d already shipped at least $900 million in gold there by the time the U.S. last fall banned American individuals, banks and corporations from doing business with anyone connected to Venezuelan gold sales.
Saab is also under investigation by Colombian and Mexican authorities.
Aside from Saab, the Treasury Department sanctioned nine other people, including two of his sons, and 13 related companies and entities. They are located in Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, Turkey, Panama, Colombia and Delaware. (Bloomberg)
