Foto Archivo
A newly revealed office tower in Dubai holds significant clues about the activities of Alex Saab and Álvaro Pulido, operating in the shadows of the Nicolás Maduro regime. Under the guise of North Life Pharma, Jean Paul Rivas, a Venezuelan businessman with ties in Switzerland and Spain, plays a crucial role in the multi-million dollar importation of medications from India for the Venezuelan regime, an endeavor marked by price markups exceeding 2,000% in some instances. This information comes from Armando Info.
Rivas, who labels himself as a “serial entrepreneur,” has been a silent connector between the Colombian duo Saab-Pulido and Indian pharmaceutical companies like Bharat Parenterals. In 2017, as Saab and Pulido escalated their influence as favored contractors of Maduro through companies such as Group Grand Limited and Asasi Food Fzc—which were also implicated in the CLAP scandal—Rivas was jetting off to India to negotiate with generic medication manufacturers. His firm, North Life Pharma, was registered in the United Arab Emirates around this time.
Documents revealed by Armando.Info indicate that North Life Pharma continued pharmaceuticals deliveries to Venezuela, sometimes directly to the Ministry of Health, despite the company’s denial of contracting with the regime. The evidence suggests otherwise: packages labeled with the slogan “Socialism is health”, invoices with official consignees, and shipments originating from India targeted at Caracas, devoid of the “triangulations” Maduro has suggested were part of a supposed resistance epic.
While Saab, now Minister of Industries, markets himself as the savior of pharmaceutical sovereignty, and Pulido remains detained in Caracas over the Pdvsa-Cripto case, the trails of their overpriced dealings, unnecessary triangulations, and murky connections continue to surface beyond Venezuela’s borders.
The report also delineates how Valboro Trading Limited, another player in this network, claims unpaid commissions for acting as an intermediary in the pharmaceutical supply chain. Rivas denies formal contractual ties with Saab or Pulido, yet his travel, email, and negotiation trails weave a narrative that’s hard to detach from the larger scheme.
As the Maduro regime attempts to enforce a narrative of “national industry”, the documents reveal a different reality: millions of dollars in contracts, medications inflated by up to 20 times their actual value, and a business circle that profited from the collapse of Venezuela’s healthcare system.