Nicolas Maduro’s ally and alleged frontman, Alex Saab, pleaded guilty yesterday in a U.S. court to charges including conspiracy to commit money laundering. 

The Colombian businessman, who served as Venezuela’s Minister of Industry and National Production from 2024 to 2026, was accused of laundering the proceeds of embezzled state funds from Venezuela over a period of 10 years. 

Saab reached a plea agreement with prosecutors. While the agreement has not been released publicly, the Associated Press and others have reported that Saab agreed to cooperate with authorities and provide information on possible co-conspirators. 

Having pleaded not guilty at an earlier hearing on July 24, Saab changed his plea Tuesday in the Southern District Court of Florida, admitting conspiracy to carry out illicit activities, fraud, bribery of public officials and concealing the origin of the funds.

He will forfeit up to US$195 million and could still face up to 20 years in prison.

“Criminals like Alex Saab who stole from the people of Venezuela and worked to exploit and misuse American financial institutions to fund illicit activities will be held accountable by this FBI,” said FBI Director Kash Patel. 

Saab was relocated to the U.S. to face charges in May, four months after U.S. armed forces launched strikes against Venezuela and seized then-President Maduro and his wife Cilia Torres from their compound in Caracas.

Maduro and Torres have been charged in the U.S. with drug-trafficking and weapons offences. The plea deal raises speculation that Saab could testify against his friend Maduro at trial, set to begin in June 2027.

Few details are known of the 12-page agreement Saab reached with the Prosecutor’s Office, but it has been reported that he will provide full information regarding events potentially involving high-ranking Venezuelan officials.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, will request a sentence at the lower end of the applicable range in return for continued cooperation. 

Saab has a history of collaboration with U.S. authorities. It was reported in 2022 that Saab and his lawyers cooperated with the FBI and DEA from 2016, sharing information about bribes he gave to Venezuelan officials, only ending in 2019 when, having fled to Venezuela, he failed to hand himself in to DEA officers.

From 2013 to 2019, Saab employed De La Espriella Lawyers Enterprise, the law firm of Colombia’s recently-elected President Abelardo de la Espriella. President De la Espriella has acknowledged that he was a close friend of Saab’s, but has sought to distance himself from his former client since entering politics. 

Whilst Saab was being publicly denounced as frontman for Maduro from 2017, President de la Espriella insists he was ignorant at that time of Saab’s illicit activities. He has yet to comment publicly on his old client’s conviction.

Saab was arrested in Cabo Verde in 2020 and later extradited to the U.S., only to be released in 2023 by the Biden administration as part of a prisoner swap with the Maduro regime.

A U.S. Department of Justice announcement describes how Saab and his co-conspirators used bribes to secure lucrative public contracts from the Venezuelan state before neglecting to complete the contracts in full and skimming hundreds of millions of dollars. 

Many of the contracts were linked to CLAP, a Venezuelan government program created to distribute subsidized food and other basic goods to low-income households.

The proceeds were laundered around the world, including to the United States.

The conspiracy was carried out in the context of hyperinflation and collapsing living standards in Venezuela. As well as failures in macroeconomic policy and, latterly, U.S. sanctions, the collapse of Venezuela’s economy was brought about by rampant corruption.

During this period Saab is reported to have transferred some US$350 million dollars out of the country.

Featured image: Mugshot of Alex Saab

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons