Alex Saab pleads guilty in US, agrees to aid Venezuela corruption probe

Miami,UPDATED: Sep 15, 2026 22:14 IST

Alex Saab, a close ally of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, has pleaded guilty in the US to one count of money laundering linked to an alleged bribery scheme for securing lucrative government contracts in Venezuela. Under the plea deal, Saab agreed to cooperate with ongoing federal investigations and forfeit USD 195 million in criminal proceeds.

Saab, 54, was deported to the US in May by Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodriguez. Prosecutors said the offence carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, but they agreed to recommend a sentence at the lower end of the range and seek further reductions if his cooperation, including against four unnamed co-defendants, proves useful.

Saab was first charged in 2019 during the first Trump administration. He was later arrested in 2020 during a refuelling stop in Cape Verde while on what the Venezuelan government described as a high-level humanitarian mission to Iran. In court on Tuesday, Saab told Judge Kathleen Williams that he takes the antidepressant Zoloft and other medicines every day for what he described as "post-traumatic stress disorder" following his 2020 arrest.

President Joe Biden pardoned Saab in 2023 in exchange for the release of several imprisoned Americans in Venezuela. That deal, part of an unsuccessful attempt by the Biden White House to persuade Maduro to hold a free presidential election, drew criticism from Republicans and federal law enforcement officials. Investigators then began examining Saab for other alleged offences not covered by the narrowly tailored pardon.

US officials have long described Saab as Maduro's "bag man" and could call on him as a character witness against the former president, who is awaiting trial on drug charges in Manhattan after being captured in a US military raid in January. The fresh US prosecution of Saab and Maduro comes as the Trump administration reshapes ties with Venezuela with a focus on tapping the country's vast oil reserves. This month, Trump announced a partnership with Venezuelan oil entrepreneur Alejandro Betancourt under which the US government will get a stake and access to at-cost crude shipments from oil fields said to have the potential to produce 65 billion barrels.

Saab was hardly known in Venezuela until after his first arrest in 2020, when Maduro's government invested major effort in rallying support for his release. Rodriguez, then Maduro's vice president, led an international campaign in which she called Saab an "innocent Venezuelan diplomat" who had been illegally "kidnapped" by the US. But after Maduro's capture, Rodriguez distanced herself from Saab, removed him from her Cabinet and stripped him of his role as the main conduit for foreign companies seeking to invest in Venezuela.

According to the new indictment, Saab built up wealth through Venezuelan government contracts and became even more important to Maduro after US sanctions pushed Venezuela to carry out much of its oil sales and foreign trade outside Western financial institutions. Prosecutors alleged that Saab and others created a network of companies to bribe senior Venezuelan officials who controlled contracts under the CLAP programme, which was set up by Maduro to supply staples such as rice, corn flour and cooking oil to poor Venezuelans during hyperinflation and a collapsing currency. The complaint said Saab helped set up fake companies, falsify shipping records and siphon money from contracts to import food from Colombia and Mexico, while the conspirators also gained access to billions of dollars in oil sales from state-run company PDVSA.

In sum, Saab's guilty plea marks a significant turn in a long-running US case centred on alleged corruption, government contracts and Venezuela's oil-linked financial networks, with his cooperation now expected to play a part in wider investigations.

With PTI Inputs

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