MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Venezuela\u2019s government said Saturday it deported a close ally of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro to face judicial proceedings in the U.S. less than three years after the business owner was pardoned by President Joe Biden as part of a prisoner swap.<\/p>\n
The decision marks a stark reversal for Alex Saab, who Maduro fought tooth and nail to bring home after his previous international arrest in 2020. Now, the Colombian-born business owner, long described by U.S. officials as Maduro\u2019s \u201cbag man,\u201d may be asked to testify against his former protector, who is awaiting trial on drug charges in Manhattan after being captured in a shock raid by the U.S. military in January.<\/p>\n
The Venezuelan immigration authority in a short statement Saturday did not explicitly say where it had sent Saab but said the decision was made based on several ongoing criminal investigations in the U.S. The statement’s reference to Saab only as a \u201cColombian citizen\u201d may have been a nod to Venezuelan law, which prohibits the extradition of its nationals. Following his last arrest, Maduro and acting President Delcy Rodr\u00edguez claimed that Saab was a Venezuelan diplomat who had been illegally detained during a refueling stop while en route to Iran for an important humanitarian mission.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press reported in February that federal prosecutors have been digging for months into Saab\u2019s role in an alleged bribery conspiracy involving Venezuelan government contracts to import food.<\/p>\n
The investigation stems from a 2021 case the Justice Department brought against Saab\u2019s longtime partner, Alvaro Pulido, a former law enforcement official said. That prosecution, out of Miami, centers around the so-called CLAP program set up by Maduro to provide staples \u2014 rice, corn flour, cooking oil \u2014 to poor Venezuelans struggling to feed themselves at a time of rampant hyperinflation and a crumbling currency.<\/p>\n
Saab, 54, amassed a fortune through Venezuelan government contracts. But he fell out of favor with the country\u2019s new leadership that took power following Maduro’s ouster. Since taking over from Maduro on Jan. 3, Rodr\u00edguez demoted Saab, firing him from her Cabinet and stripping him of his role as the main conduit for foreign companies looking to invest in Venezuela. For months conflicting news accounts have circulated that he was imprisoned or under house arrest.<\/p>\n
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report from Washington<\/p>\n
Venezuelan law prohibits the extradition of its own nationals,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Venezuela\u2019s government said Saturday it deported a close ally of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro to face judicial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[108016,108015,24423,41138,23681,59373,59371,59372,87361,61262,82,84,83,23159,108014],"class_list":["post-296572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-alex-saab","tag-alvaro-pulido","tag-joe-biden","tag-nicolas-maduro","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-32501-ap-online-latin-america-and-caribbean-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-venezuela","tag-venezuela-us-maduro-ally"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}