Alex Saab, the Colombian businessman and alleged frontman for former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in a Miami court to conspiring to launder money linked to a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme involving Venezuela’s subsidized food program known as CLAP.

Saab, 54, is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, an offense carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the businessman took part in a scheme to bribe Venezuelan officials between 2015 and 2019 in order to secure lucrative contracts under the CLAP (Local Committees for Supply and Production) program. Prosecutors allege that Saab and his associates used shell companies and falsified documents to divert hundreds of millions of dollars intended for food purchases, funds that later passed through bank accounts in the United States. Authorities say the scheme was subsequently expanded to include the sale of oil from the Venezuela state-owned oil company PDVSA.

This is not the first time Saab has faced the U.S. justice system. He was arrested in Cape Verde in 2020 while en route to Iran, after his private jet stopped to refuel. He spent more than a year fighting extradition to the United States before being handed over in October 2021.

In that case, U.S. prosecutors charged Saab and fellow Colombian businessman Álvaro Pulido with money laundering. According to the indictment, between 2011 and 2015 the two men obtained contracts to build subsidized housing and bribed officials aligned with Venezuela’s ruling Chavista regime to falsify import documents for construction materials that never arrived. Prosecutors also alleged that they exploited Venezuela’s currency-exchange system to obtain millions of dollars, which they transferred abroad through the U.S. banking system. Following negotiations with prosecutors, Saab was left facing a single count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, to which he pleaded not guilty.

The case never went to trial because Saab was released in December 2023 as part of a prisoner exchange between the administrations of Joe Biden and Nicolás Maduro. Under the agreement, Venezuela freed 10 Americans, a fugitive former military contractor, and around 20 political prisoners. Saab was welcomed back to Venezuela by Maduro as a hero.

Maduro was captured by a U.S. operation in January and transferred to New York, where he is awaiting trial. A month later, in February, Saab was arrested in Caracas, and the Venezuelan government led by acting President Delcy Rodríguez handed him over to the United States on May 16.

According to prosecutors, the new case is based on a separate scheme from the one covered by the indictment for which Saab previously received a pardon.

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