Key Financier of Venezuela’s Maduro Regime Arrested

Authorities in the African country of Cape Verde detained a Colombian businessman wanted in the U.S. on money-laundering charges, in a blow for Venezuela’s authoritarian government, for whom he has become an important deal maker.

Alex Saab Morán, traveling in a private jet, was arrested during a refueling stop on the West African island nation en route to Iran, where U.S. officials believe the 48-year-old is helping cut deals to exchange Venezuelan gold for Iranian gasoline and other oil products, according to a person familiar with the case.

The person described Mr. Saab as one of Washington’s top targets as it ramps up its pressure campaign to financially cut off Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and force him from office. While there is no extradition treaty between the U.S. and Cape Verde, Mr. Saab could still be expelled by the island, which could allow American law enforcement to take custody of him, the person said.

The U.S. has pursued a number of former regime loyalists on corruption and drug charges after they broke ranks from Mr. Maduro and fled from Venezuela. But Mr. Saab would be one of the highest-profile arrests of a figure still active in the regime’s financial affairs, the person familiar with the case added.

“The whole financial operation of the regime could crumble with this guy at the hands of the U.S.,” the person said.

Mr. Maduro’s foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, condemned the detention and referred to Mr. Saab as an agent of the Venezuelan government who should enjoy diplomatic immunity.

“This action, in violation of international law and norms, corresponds to the acts of aggression and harassment against the Venezuelan people taken on by the USA,” Mr. Arreaza said. He added that Mr. Saab was on a business trip to secure shipments of food and medicine for the country’s efforts to contain the spread of Covid-19.

Mr. Saab’s Miami-based lawyer Maria Dominguez confirmed her client’s arrest but declined to comment further.

Officials in Cape Verde acted on an Interpol notice that had been issued for Mr. Saab following his indictment in the U.S. for money-laundering offenses last year, a U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman said.

Though rarely seen in public, Mr. Saab has emerged in recent years as a key financier for Mr. Maduro’s increasingly pariah government, helping create a global network of businesses that U.S. officials say he used to stash hundreds of millions of dollars in proceeds from no-bid state contracts for projects ranging from housing construction to food distribution.

Last year, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Mr. Saab, along with more than two dozen companies linked to him, his family and his business partners on corruption allegations. Some of Mr. Saab’s state contracts were secured through payments of bribes to three of Mr. Maduro’s stepsons, the Treasury said. Mr. Maduro rejects the U.S. accusations as a smear campaign by his political rivals.

In July, prosecutors in the Southern District of Florida indicted Mr. Saab on charges that he transferred through the U.S. more than $350 million in funds secured through government corruption schemes going back to 2011.

The U.S. and dozens of its allies have deemed Mr. Maduro’s rule illegitimate since a 2018 election marred by fraud accusations and support his main rival Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s sole democratic leader. The U.S. Treasury has financially blacklisted more than 100 regime insiders and earlier this year the U.S. prosecutors indicted Mr. Maduro along with more than a dozen other officials on drug-trafficking charges.

While those moves have aimed to financially choke off the regime in Caracas, U.S. authorities say Mr. Saab has become a vital lifeline for Mr. Maduro, helping engineer commercial deals with U.S. adversaries and skirt U.S. punitive measures, which have also sought to ban the trade of Venezuelan gold and oil.

Three years ago, Mr. Saab was central to a gold-for-food exchange that Venezuela formed with Turkey, according to former Venezuelan prosecutors who had investigated Mr. Saab’s business dealings in the country.

The person familiar with Mr. Saab’s case in the U.S. said the businessman is also believed to have created a vast financial network to move money on Caracas’ behalf, using bank accounts in a host of countries including Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Malaysia and China.

In recent months, Mr. Maduro’s administration has turned to Iran for fuel shipments, as well as technical support to revamp its once-thriving oil refineries. Hobbled by an economic collapse and rampant energy-sector corruption, the South American nation is struggling with severe gasoline shortages that have compounded the misery in a country reeling from spreading malnutrition and sky-high inflation.

Mr. Saab has come under pressure on multiple fronts. Earlier this month, Bruce Bagley, a retired University of Miami professor and expert on Latin American drug trafficking, pleaded guilty in New York to laundering corrupt Venezuelan money on Mr. Saab’s behalf.

In his native Colombia, the Attorney General’s office says it has probed allegations that Mr. Saab laundered money for narcotics traffickers, charges that Mr. Saab’s lawyers in the past have denied. On Tuesday, Colombian prosecutors seized nearly $8 million in properties owned by the businessman near his coastal hometown of Barranquilla—including a mansion, three garages and an apartment.

Photo: The U.S. has deemed the rule of Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro to be illegitimate. - REUTERS

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/key-financier-of-venezuelas-maduro-regime-arrested-11592078537