Alex Saab

Career

Alex Saab is the son of a Lebanese immigrant, Luis, who settled in the city of Barranquilla and opened various businesses, including Textiles Saab, finding success in Colombia's textile industry. Alex Saab attended the German School of Barranquilla, an elite private school.

Saab began his career in Barranquilla at age 18, selling business promotional keychains and subsequently work uniforms. By the time he was 19, he had opened a T-shirt factory.

In early 2000, he formed a network of export organisations with family members listed as officers. Saab joined a group of Colombian businessmen who were exporting merchandise to Colombia from Venezuela using the CADIVI currency system. According to a Univisión source, during this time Saab accumulated million dollar debts after the suspension of foreign exchange payments by the Venezuelan government, which in turn alleged that some businessmen in the country had cheated millions from the Cadivi system, although Saab was not accused of such fraud. Saab sued Univisión's journalist Gerardo Reyes in the US after Reyes reported on these issues.

According to an investigation by Noticias Caracol, businessman César Ruiz Sandoval was a key player in Saab's network starting from 2008 and would reportedly receive financial compensation from companies linked to Saab, up to 260 million pesos from HSC Capital, Golden Sun Trading de Colombia, Promotora Dubera and other companies. Ruiz owned a company named Marmocol de Colombia that would later be called Criadero Porcino Casa Blanca which had a Saab company among its commercial references, Shatex. Ruiz is also named as a founder and as a shareholder of Soft Solutions (later named Intratex International), along with other partners of Alex Saab. César Ruiz was killed on 4 June 2022 and the Office of the Attorney General of Colombia would open an investigation on his murder.

Saab was also enriched due to the materials supplier business of the Housing Mission in Venezuela. According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), in 2009 Saab and his business partner Álvaro Pulido won "an overvalued government contract to build 25,000 units of low-income housing for three or four-times the worth of the original construction cost." From 2011, Saab worked with Maduro's stepsons, Walter, Yosser and Yoswal, known as Los Chamos, because of their access to Maduro and former Vice President Tareck El Aissami, to secure government contracts.

Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAP)

The Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAP) programme, established in 2016, imports food for the poor in Venezuela in the context of the country's food shortages. Saab had sold food to Venezuela for more than US$200 million in a contract signed by President Nicolás Maduro through a registered company in Hong Kong. On 23 August 2017, the former Venezuelan attorney general, Luisa Ortega Díaz, said Alex Saab was the co-owner of the Mexican firm supplying food to CLAP, Group Grand Limited, along with Álvaro Pulido and Rofolfo Reyes, who Ortega claimed was "presumably President Nicolás Maduro". The food supplies have been sold through Group Grand Limited for 112% more than the original price in Mexico. Saab would have met Pulido in 2012, when he was dedicated to supplying the Saab company, but this activity would have stopped doing it in 2014.

In 2018, the Venezuela government began paying for the CLAP imports using its gold resources. The US Treasury said the government was pressuring miners to sell Saab gold at an inflated market rate. "The gold would be flown to the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. Saab's company, Mulberry, based in Turkey, allegedly would help facilitate payments for the selling of gold and goods back to Venezuelan clients."

In April and September 2017 four investigative journalists published reports in Venezuelan web portal Armando.info about inflated food prices within the CLAP initiative, exposing Saab's relationship with the Venezuelan government. The first report showed Saab's connections to Hong Kong-based Grupo Grand (including the listing of his son as a beneficiary and the company sharing an address with another of Saab's enterprises; Saab rejected the allegations) and that it charged the Venezuelan government prices far above the market rate. The second report investigated Luisa Ortega's allegations about the CLAP programme. A joint report between the Central University of Venezuela and Armando.info showed that milk powder supplied by Saab's company was not nutritious, having high levels of sodium, low levels of calcium and only 1/41 the protein of normal milk.

Following the publication, Armando.info and the journalists were threatened and had their personal information shared on social media, and Saab brought a lawsuit alleging continued defamation of reputation and aggravated injury charges, which carry a prison sentence of up to six years, leading the reporters to flee Venezuela.

Criminal investigations and arrest

DEA investigation and the FinCEN files

In 2016, Reuters reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had been investigating companies owned by Saab and Álvaro Pulido on suspicion of money laundering from the illegal trafficking of cocaine from Colombia. The FinCEN Files, published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in 2020, revealed that from 2016 onwards banks had reported Saab to the U.S. Treasury's FinCEN financial crimes bureau for suspicious transactions from the Global Bank of Commerce in Antigua.

2018 foiled arrest operation

The Colombian Prosecution and the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol (DIJIN) issued arrest warrants on 24 September 2018 against seven people, including Alex Saab, charged with asset laundering worth US$25 billion between 2004 and 2011, and planned to carry out an operation the following day. However, the operation was foiled after Eddie Andrés Pinto, a patrolman of the DIJIN who served as an interception analyst, alerted several members of the group about their arrests. As a response, Alex Saab escaped to Venezuela and his brothers, Luis Alberto and Amir, disconnected their cellphones and the authorities lost their track. After an investigation, a tip by an anonymous informant and an extortion complaint filed by a trusted person by Saab, the Colombian authorities identified Andrés Pinto as responsible; on 11 October he was arrested in Bogotá and indicted by the Prosecution with bribery and illegal violation of communications or correspondence of an official nature. Pinto announced his intention to collaborate with the authorities. At the moment it was unknown if the indicted group and Saab contacted the DIJIN to leak information regarding the operation or if they were subject of extortion, and the Prosecution was evaluating if Pinto received benefits in exchange of the provided information. On 23 September 2018, one of Saab's lawyers filed a complaint with the prosecution for attempted extortion from a public official "who is providing confidential information about investigative proceedings against the Saab family using WhatsApp and Telegram messages, in exchange for some economic or labor purpose.” On 12 October, Andrés Pinto accepted the extortion charges that were indicted against him. According to the complaint in the audios and WhatsApp captures provided therein, Pinto requested COP 500 million in exchange for erasing all the information that existed on behalf of Saab, stating that "there was nothing that compromised Saab or his family", but that they "were going to be captured as a measure of pressure".

Colombian, US and Swiss criminal charges

On 8 May 2019, the Colombian prosecutors office charged Saab with crimes of money laundering, a concert to commit crimes, illicit enrichment, exports and fictitious imports and an aggravated fraud for events related to his Shatex company. Since September 2018, he is considered a fugitive in Colombia for failing to attend any judicial proceeding even with a firm arrest warrant. Saab was found not guity of the Colombian charges in May 2024.

On 25 July 2019, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida charged Saab and Pulido with money laundering of up US$350 million related to a 2011-15 scheme to pay bribes to take advantage of Venezuela's government-set exchange rate.

In March 2021, after three years of investigation, Swiss prosecutors concluded that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Saab for money laundering.

In November 2021 court records in the U.S. court case of an alleged ex-associate of Saab Bruce Bagley, (who has pled guilty to Laundering about US$2.5 million in deposits from overseas accounts that were controlled by Saab) claimed that an intermediary (later identified by Bagley as Jorge Luis Hernández) told Bagley the $2.5 million he received from Saab was to pay lawyers who were assisting Saab with his cooperation with the U.S. government, who in meetings provided information on the Maduro government to U.S. authorities. David Rivkin, one of Saab's attorneys, said Saab had not cooperated with American officials and the Venezuelan government were aware of all his activities. The meetings reportedly took place from 2017 until the U.S. money laundering charges were releveled in 2019.

Sanctions

On 25 July 2019, the United States Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on 10 people and 13 companies (from Colombia, Hong Kong, Mexico, Panama, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the U.S.) in "CLAP", which includes Nicolas Maduro's stepsons and Saab. According to a statement by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, "The corruption network that operates the CLAP program has allowed Maduro and his family members to steal from the Venezuelan people. They use food as a form of social control, to reward political supporters and punish opponents, all the while pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars through a number of fraudulent schemes."

The Maduro government rejected the sanctions, calling it sign of "desperation" by "the gringo empire." Maduro said "Imperialists, prepare for more defeats, because the CLAP in Venezuela will continue, no one takes the CLAP away from the people." A statement from the Venezuelan foreign ministry "denounces the repeated practice of economic terrorism by the US government against the Venezuelan people, announcing measures whose criminal purpose is to deprive all Venezuelans of their right to food."

According to Armando.Info, as a result of US investigations and sanctions, Saab moved his shell companies to Turkey.

In July 2021, the United Kingdom issued a series of sanctions that included Saab, which included the freezing of assets and travel bans. Álvaro Enrique Pulido, identified as Saab's associate, was also sanctioned, in both cases for ""exploiting two of Venezuela's public programs that were established to provide poor Venezuelans with affordable food and housing", saying that "They both benefited from improperly awarded contracts, in which promised goods were delivered at highly inflated prices. Their actions caused more suffering to Venezuelans who were already in poverty for their own private enrichment."

First arrest

On 12 June 2020, en route from Venezuela to Iran on a business jet, Alex Saab was arrested during a fuel stop at Cape Verde. Saab was arrested in accordance to an Interpol red notice in relation to his indictment for money laundering in the United States. The Venezuelan government stated the red notice had been issued a day after Saab was detained. Venezuela's foreign ministry said the Venezuelan government had employed Saab to obtain food, medicine and other humanitarian goods to help Venezuela combat the COVID-19 pandemic. After his arrest, Venezuela said Saab was a Venezuelan diplomat who was on a humanitarian mission to Iran to organise the exchange of Venezuelan gold for Iranian gasoline, an argument rejected by Cape Verde's Barlavento Court of Appeal. While no extradition treaty exists between Cape Verde and the U.S., legal experts have argued that Cape Verde is part of United Nations conventions that compel the country to comply with an Interpol red notice, regardless of the date when it was issued.

The US deployed the Navy cruiser USS San Jacinto off Cape Verde from November to December 2020, on a secret mission to "deter Venezuela and Iran from plotting to spirit Mr. Saab away from the island". The New York Times reported that "hard-liners at the Justice and State Departments, including Elliott Abrams, the State Department's special envoy for Iran and Venezuela" were worried that Iranian or Venezuelan operatives could help Saab escape and that the US would "lose an unusual opportunity to punish Mr. Maduro".

Saab said in a June 2021 CNN interview that he had been tortured by the authorities in Cape Verde.

In August 2020, Saab asked Cape Verde's Prime Minister, Ulisses Correia e Silva, to release him. The Russian government criticised the detention of Saab and the extradition request.

Saab's wife, Italian model Camila Fabbri, moved to Moscow with her family in early 2021.

Shortly after his detention, on 13 June, the foreign affairs minister appointed by Maduro, Jorge Arreaza, tweeted in support of Alex Saab, labeling his arrest as "arbitrary" and "illegal". Journalist Roberto Deniz expressed surprise by the declaration, saying that after years denying or ignoring its relationship with Saab, the government now called him a "government agent" and a "Venezuelan citizen".

Trial

Prosecutors requested that seven of the initial eight July 2019 indictment charges be dropped to comply with assurances to the Cape Verde government in seeking Saab's extradition, who were promised that Saab would only be charged on a single count to comply with Cape Verde's laws regarding the maximum imprisonment term. Following the request, on 1 November 2021, American Judge Robert Scola dismissed seven out of eight money laundering charges against Saab.

According to judicial documents published on 16 February 2022, Saab became a DEA informant in 2018, during which time he shared information with the United States justice system about the bribes that he offered to Venezuelan officials, his illicit activities and contracts with the Venezuelan government, planning to turn himself in. According to the documents, Saab met with American authorities between August 2016 and June 2019, and signed a cooperation agreement with the DEA in 2018. The documents also mentioned how in another meeting in June 2018 Saab admitted paying bribes related to food supply contracts. The documents state that, as part of the cooperation agreement with the American authorities, Saab wired over $10 million obtained through said operations to the DEA and held several meetings with agents and prosecutors in Colombia and Europe. According to prosecutors, the United States stopped considering him as a collaborator after Saab missed a 30 May 2019 deadline set for him to turn himself in and face charges in Florida.

In the hearing where the documents were revealed, one of Saab's defense lawyers, Neil Schuster, pleaded with Judge Scola that the information be kept secret, fearing that the physical safety of Saab's family in Venezuela could be put at risk if the Maduro government learned about it. When the documents were presented in 2021, the prosecution also requested them be kept private because at the time it thought it would be risky for him and his family for the details of the collaboration to be known in Venezuela. However, during this hearing, prosecutors stated that it was time for them to be made public and downplayed any dangers, saying that Saab's legal team had not taken them up on an offer to assist his family in leaving Venezuela. Scola agreed, stating that the documents could not be kept secret indefinitely and that the access to criminal processes public's right outweighed the concerns about the dangers to his family. He also said the court had not heard valid arguments to support the claim that disclosure of the documents would endanger Saab's family in Venezuela, after nearly a year.

Second arrest

On February 4, 2026, Saab was arrested in Venezuela as part of a joint operation between American FBI and Venezuelan authorities. Saab was captured around 2 a.m. VET, and was under the custody of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service while his extradition to the United States was being determined.

On May 16, Venezuela’s government announced the deportation of Saab to the US based on several ongoing criminal investigations there.

Political career

Nicolás Maduro appointed him to the position of Minister of People's Power for Industry and National Production on 18 October 2024.

Venezuela’s interim leader Delcy Rodríguez on 16 January 2026 announced she had dismissed Alex Saab from his role as industry minister.