Long before Reuters “discovered” part of the corruption linked to Alex Saab in an “exclusive,” Colombian lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella took on Revista Semana, one of Colombia’s most prestigious political magazines. The reason was that, at that time, he co-authored a column with former Colombian tax chief Fanny Kertzman, and in one of those articles, we highlighted the sudden rags-to-riches story of Alex Saab. This article served as an introduction to Saab’s “successful business career” in Venezuela, which only came about due to his connections with narcotics senator Piedad Córdoba.
Córdoba, also known as Teodora de Bolívar, had been receiving favors from Hugo Chávez for years. Her presence in the documents retrieved from the assassinated narcoterrorist leader of the FARC, Raúl Reyes, left no doubt about her revolutionary credentials. According to sources close to Saab, Córdoba and Saab formed a friendship that catapulted him into the immediate circle of power brokers in Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. In that environment, Saab transformed from a heavily indebted T-shirt businessman in Barranquilla to a multimillion-dollar contractor in Venezuela.
When this site began focusing on Saab and his activities in 2013, he was, of course, a completely unknown figure. His only claim to fame had been signing a contract with Hugo Chávez, Nicolás Maduro, Juan Manuel Santos, and María Ángela Holguín.
This contract was signed just four days after Saab registered a shell company in Colombia, meaning that Chávez, Maduro, Santos, and Holguín signed multimillion-dollar bilateral construction/infrastructure contracts with someone whose background was in textiles, and who had just registered a company. No due diligence or proper investigation was conducted on Saab. Piedad Córdoba provided the necessary good faith to the Chávez/Santos regimes.
At that time, Saab was not the notorious figure he is now. I spoke with him at least three times and directly asked questions about his background, credentials, etc. Saab never gave me clear answers, first offering to fly me—expenses paid—to Venezuela, “to verify” the legitimacy of his operations, and when that silly offer was rejected, he instead sent one of his lieutenants to London to meet with me, to “convince” me of his legitimacy.
Some time later, a source very close to Saab contacted me and began leaking information about Saab’s operations in various jurisdictions, the background of his partner Germán Rubio (also known as Álvaro Enrique Pulido Vargas), how Rubio’s children were at the helm of Saab’s companies, his relationship with Córdoba, with Maduro’s personal assistant Williams Amaro, and how the Chávez regime pressured Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, and the attorney general of Ecuador to withdraw charges in an investigation that uncovered Saab’s corrupt dealings. In summary, more and more evidence emerged suggesting that Saab’s flourishing business empire was essentially a massive looting of Venezuela’s funds.
The deeper the investigation went, the more evidence of corruption we found, and we exposed this in Revista Semana. On October 30, 2013, de la Espriella, Saab’s abrasive legal advisor, sent an email to Armando Neira, editor of Revista Semana, with a bunch of unfounded accusations about me. However, curiously, de la Espriella claimed that I was a fugitive from Venezuelan justice. When I was informed of that, I simply challenged De la Espriella to present evidence of my status as a fugitive, which I am still waiting for.
But the hysterical vitriol of de la Espriella did not stop there. I was reliably informed that he also claimed, as have other thugs close to Saab, that I was an extortionist. This particular assertion is interesting given Saab’s recent troubles with Colombia’s justice system. In this regard, de la Espriella repeats the same falsehood of extortion and goes on to “defend” his client’s “reputation.”
Regarding a journalistic note published in @elespectador against ALEX SAAB, Doctor Abelardo De La Espriella, in his capacity as legal representative of the businessman, presents the following press release to the public: https://t.co/yTDTray4XR pic.twitter.com/xSLXlPvT0V
— DELAESPRIELLALawyers (@DELAESPRIELLAE) October 1, 2018
This site can report that both Alex Saab and Abelardo de la Espriella are persons of interest to the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, and the DEA. Given his partnership with Rubio (Pulido Vargas) and Córdoba, Saab has been under scrutiny for quite some time. Saab, who left for Rome just before the announcement of the recent Colombian investigation at the end of September, has also become a person of interest for Italy’s financial oversight authority.
It remains to be seen what the Duque administration will do with Saab, his lawyers, business partners, and operatives. Evidence of irregularities is piling up in various jurisdictions. Because Saab did not limit himself to the construction sector: he engaged in parallel market/FX operations, food products, and oil and gas. Saab has been a conduit between PDVSA and Trafigura, according to sources, which report that Saab’s toxicity required the presence of more acceptable intermediaries in such deals. People like real estate developer Jean Paul Rivas are part of Saab’s network.