How it started: “Meet Alex Saab, Colombian Bolichico,” October 24, 2013. English version here.
Current status: “Alex Saab Moran Mugshot | 10/16/21 Arrest in Florida”
We take great pride in the fact that the criminal charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice that led to Saab’s arrest (corruption and money laundering) stemmed from his involvement in acquiring housing through the Global Construction Fund and in currency fraud between Venezuela and Ecuador. This site reported on that story on October 24, 2013. We also take pride in having labeled him a thug from day one; we tracked him down and interviewed him on November 11, 2013—another remarkable achievement. It is reassuring to know that the prosecutors from the Department of Justice whose work led to Saab’s arrest are regular readers and utilize information from this site to further law enforcement efforts.
However, Saab’s exceptional criminal career spans multiple sectors. Shortly after housing allocations, Rafael Ramírez announced that PDVSA would start importing subsidized food. This is where Saab solidified his position, as brilliantly highlighted by Roberto Deniz. His influence was widespread: housing, FX, infrastructure, imports, exports, mining, oil, banking…
Saab embodies not only the rot of chavismo but also that of Venezuela. Despite being linked to a convicted head of a Colombian cartel (Germán Rubio Salas), everyone aligned with Saab. Maduro was not the only one. Oh no. Prominent opposition politicians closely linked to Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo López granted congressional pardons. Cilia Flores and her extended family also engaged substantially with Saab. Impeccably clean entrepreneurs, seen as “apolitical,” were assigned to deal with firms like Trafigura and other Swiss trading houses. Rafael Correa did the same in Ecuador. Piedad Córdoba and Gustavo Petro in Colombia. Baltasar Garzón in Spain… Juan Manuel Santos and María Ángeles Holguín even sat there witnessing Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro grant a broke and unknown individual from Barranquilla contracts worth over $680 million, and he did nothing! Saab’s reach was global. With the amount of money he was moving, there were no closed or impenetrable doors. Anywhere. This lasted for much of a decade.
However, this level of criminality doesn’t last long once Uncle Sam takes notice, and they did take notice. U.S. federal agencies were on Saab’s trail. His U.S. visa, along with his ex-wife’s, was revoked in the late ’90s, many years before he even set foot in Venezuela. All jurisdictions where he operated, except for Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, and of course, Switzerland, collaborated with the Department of Justice to bring Saab into custody. Colombia’s historically lax stance suddenly shifted, putting him on the run. Italy, a jurisdiction that convicted Saab’s partner (Germán Rubio Salas), also took action and forced Saab and his bimbo wife to flee. However, the biggest shock came with Saab’s arrest in Cabo Verde, a small and impoverished archipelago off the coast of West Africa, where he was passing as “Nicolás Maduro’s Special Envoy” on his way to Iran.
Maduro pulled out all the stops to free Saab. Maduro’s allies did too. Fortunately, none of it worked.