Expelled Saturday to the United States, Alex Saab, Colombian of Lebanese origin, formerly a key figure in power in Venezuela and close to ousted president Nicolas Maduro, has become a recurring issue in relations between the two countries.
Minister under Maduro, he was sidelined by interim president Delcy Rodriguez, who came to power after the capture of Maduro on January 3 by the American army.
Considered an intermediary for chavismo internationally, Alex Saab was arrested in 2020 in Cape Verde and then extradited to the United States, where authorities accused him of setting up a scheme to divert food aid for the benefit of Mr. Maduro and his government. He was exchanged for American prisoners in December 2023.
For his detractors, he is Maduro’s business straw man. His supporters, on the other hand, see him as a devoted servant of chavismo and a clever intermediary, qualities that earned him citizenship and a diplomatic passport from Venezuela.
Suspected by the United States of pulling the strings of a vast network that allegedly allowed Nicolas Maduro and members of the government to divert food aid for their own benefit, Alex Saab was indicted in July 2019 in Miami. With his associate Alvaro Pulido, he was accused of transferring $350 million (285 million euros) out of Venezuela to foreign accounts. He faced 20 years in prison.
In June 2020, Mr. Saab was detained during a technical stop of his private jet in Cape Verde, then extradited to the United States after 16 months of fierce diplomatic and legal battle. Caracas demanded his release loudly, plastering inscriptions throughout Venezuela like “Freedom for diplomat Alex Saab” or creating the hashtag #FreeAlexSaab on social media.
“Never before had chavismo fought so hard for someone. What explains all this commotion about him?” asked Roberto Deniz, a journalist at Armando.info and specialist on the case, at the time of his extradition.
“There is clearly a lot of fear. He can reveal things about the schemes, the flow of funds, the overcosts… He was the linchpin of Maduro’s regime’s business affairs with allied countries,” added Mr. Deniz.
Iranian essence and Italian system
Son of a Lebanese entrepreneur in Barranquilla (northeast Colombia), Alex Saab, 54, started by selling keychains before successfully venturing into textiles.
“Driven by his cosmopolitan entrepreneurial spirit, he seeks to transcend borders” and goes to Venezuela, attracted by “the construction sector,” as portrayed in the YouTube series “Alex Saab, anti-blockade agent,” a very official version of his life.
According to this series, Mr. Saab secured his first contract in Venezuela in 2011. In the images, we see the businessman in his thirties at the Miraflores presidential palace signing a “strategic alliance” for “construction kits for social housing.”
At the time, Hugo Chavez was president, and Nicolas Maduro was Minister of Foreign Affairs.
“I proposed an Italian construction system. After a year of work and door-to-door sales, we managed to enter and open a factory,” Alex Saab told El Tiempo newspaper in 2017.
During Maduro’s presidency, Saab experienced a meteoric rise to become a “shadow minister,” according to Roberto Deniz.
According to his YouTube channel, after “significant” commercial successes, Alex Saab turned in 2018 into “a public official” sent on a “mission” to acquire in Russia and Iran — two important Venezuela allies — “food, medicine, and products for refineries.”
Alex Saab is notably one of the architects of the spectacular and paradoxical “Iranian route” that saw Iran supply fuel to Venezuela, thanks to tankers, a country with immense oil reserves but severely affected by American sanctions.
His return to Venezuela in December 2023, after almost three years of detention in the United States, was broadcast live on public television and hailed as a diplomatic victory. He now faces another stint in the American penal system, like his former ally Maduro.
