On May 18, the same day Alex Saab was presented in a Miami federal court, the Venezuelan National Union of Press Workers (SNTP) informed on its X account that digital outlet Venezuela News was shutting down. Some 100 workers would be laid off, while its website was blocked by all major Internet providers, according to anti-censorship organization VE Sin Filtro.

The closing came suddenly and unexpectedly: broadcaster Guillermo Díaz noticed something happening at noon during an ad break of his radio show Lo de Guille:  “I saw a meeting being held outside. Lots of long faces, great sadness in VN’s hallways. Shortly after that, production staff told him “The radio is done. At 1 pm you wrap up and everyone leaves…”.

Why? Because Venezuela News was linked to the infamous Colombian businessman. Despite being useful to the State’s communicational empire for years and even tweaking its editorial line after the events of January 3rd, it ultimately shared a similar fate.

Despite its generic name, Venezuela News actually had a relevant role inside the larger scheme of chavista disinformation and propaganda since its creation back in November of 2021.

VN presented itself as “a national and international news agency that has the core purpose of telling the truth about Venezuela, hidden and/or distorted by communication monopolies” and pledged to offer news coverage with “…special emphasis on the positive Venezuelan aspects,” but didn’t shy away from embracing the State’s position of “mediatic war” that the country faced.

Venezuela News boosted harassment campaigns on social media against Deniz and Armando as part of the larger #FreeAlexSaab media strategy.

“Venezuela… has been victim of a systematic lynching; through massive fake news, rumors and imposed scenarios. This is how certain sectors clearly have the goal of positioning a negative image of our country. This requires immediate responses in the field of communication.”

VN tried to avoid direct links with the State’s media apparatus but some of its main personalities came from there, including its director Pedro Carvajalino, co-host of VTV’s Zurda Konducta show (similar to the emblematic chavista late night La Hojilla, but targeted at a young audience, which aired from 2010 to late 2025).

Others involved in the outlet came from the Free Alex Saab “movement”, an international propaganda platform created as part of the larger PR effort by the Maduro government after Saab’s arrest in Cape Verde in June 2020 and his extradition to the US in October 2021. The movement described its mission to “…follow the case and to properly say in all possible scenarios that Alex Saab is innocent…”.

To better understand how Venezuela News pushed deceptive narratives, this article from February 2024 is fundamental, thanks to the joint work of several Venezuelan outlets known as the “C-Informa” coalition, specialized in disinformation. It finds more than 30 examples of VN publishing misleading or inaccurate articles between November 2021 and December 2023.

The piece also shows the complex network where VN operated, going from State media, PSUV, government ministries and other proxy local news sites like Lechuguinos (created by Lenin Dávila, a PSUV communications official who later became vice president of Venezuela News).

Special mention deserved VN’s connection with Russian State media outlets like Russia Today and Sputnik Media, helping them whitewash the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war. Of course, Maduro’s Venezuela and Russia’s Putin kept a close relationship on this.

But way before that, Alex Saab was at the center of a years-long targeted campaign against the Venezuelan independent outlet Armando.Info and four of its journalists: co-editors Joseph Poliszuk, Alfredo Meza, Ewald Scharfenberg and investigative reporter Roberto Deniz.

After uncovering Saab’s role inside the CLAP food program in a series of reports, he responded with a defamation lawsuit in a Caracas court, forcing them to leave Venezuela. The Armando website then suffered multiple cyberattacks and was later blocked by orders of Conatel.

Tarek William Saab accused Armando and other journalists of being part of an extortion network on behalf of former Oil Minister and Vice President Tareck El Aissami.

I wrote in 2019 a Caracas Chronicles piece about this and interviewed both Deniz and Poliszuk. They explained the international web created by Saab back then, his previous business with the Maduro government and how his corrupt enterprise maintained a low profile.

After its launch, Venezuela News boosted harassment campaigns on social media against Deniz and Armando as part of the larger #FreeAlexSaab media strategy.

After Saab’s release by the Biden administration in late 2023 in exchange for 10 imprisoned US citizens held in Venezuela, Roberto Deniz’s investigation on him became the subject of the 2024 documentary “A Dangerous Assignment” for PBS’s news series Frontline. It was directed by Juan Ravell, who started collaborating with Armando.Info in 2019 making shorts and videos. 

At the time of the documentary’s release, then Prosecutor General Tarek William Saab accused Armando and other journalists of being part of an extortion network on behalf of former Oil Minister and Vice President Tareck El Aissami. Deniz wasn’t surprised by this official reaction: “…it’s more than evident that this accusation is total nonsense, but that doesn’t make it less serious, because this is a criminalization of the journalism that we have been doing.” 

During an event in London last year, Deniz talked about the challenges he has confronted that despite the difficulties, he considers his job as journalist very important: “My hope as a Venezuelan journalist is that things can change in my country, not for me, but for people, that the country can recover, not only in an eco-social way, but also in a democratic way. That’s going to be good not for my generation, but for the next generation of journalists.”

What can be learned of the situation of Venezuela News and the influence that Alex Saab had in the communicational hegemony? NGO IPYS Venezuela makes a good point in this summary:

“In recent years, critical media was closed, blocked or economically asphyxiated and in parallel, digital platforms were consolidated with political backing, artificial amplifying and coordinated propaganda strategies. The closing of Venezuela News reveals the nature of media structures aligned with the government with its sustainability not depending on transparent journalistic practices but of political junctures, influence networks and opaque financing mechanisms.”

Yet, the recent twist on the Alex Saab story also serves as vindication of the work that Roberto Deniz, Armando and many other journalists and outlets in Venezuela have done over the last few years. They have endured not just the State’s persecution but the pressure from those same media structures, and the fake narratives they built and delivered through dirty tricks.