Alex Saab appears this Monday before the US justice although he warns that he has "nothing to collaborate"

Colombian businessman Alex Saab, very close to the Government of Venezuela and alleged front man of President Nicolás Maduro, will appear this Monday at his first hearing before the US justice after being extradited to answer for accusations of money laundering.

Saab, 49, will be prosecuted for alleged money laundering in Florida federal court.

He has been linked to a bribery scheme for more than 350 million dollars from a low-income housing project of the Venezuelan government.

US prosecutors accuse him of amassing a fortune through business on behalf of the Maduro government.

["Maduro is a narco-dictator": Iván Duque launches harsh criticism against the governments of Venezuela and Cuba]

Saab, born in Colombia 49 years ago, affirmed through a letter read by his wife from Caracas that he has not committed any crime and that he will not collaborate with the Prosecutor's Office.

The businessman arrived in the United States from Cape Verde on Saturday, where he had been detained since June 12, 2020 under an arrest warrant issued through Interpol by the United States.

The Venezuelan government, which considers that Saab was the victim of a “kidnapping” and has reacted to the extradition by unilaterally breaking the dialogue with the opposition that was taking place in Mexico, did everything possible to prevent him from being handed over to the United States.

The Venezuelan opposition on Sunday urged the Government of Nicolás Maduro to return to the dialogue table to resume negotiations.

From a hotel in Mexico City, the head of the opposition delegation, Gerardo Blyde, told the press that "these delays do not help."

The fourth session of the process - which began in September in Mexico - was scheduled to take place from October 17 to 20.

In addition to fighting judicially in Cape Verde, the Venezuelan Administration gave him Venezuelan nationality, alleged that when he was arrested he was traveling to Iran to fulfill an official mission and had diplomatic immunity and made him a representative in absentia in the dialogue.

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In the United States, his lawyers have focused on demonstrating that the US courts do not have jurisdiction to try him and that he was not a fugitive when he was arrested in June 2020 in Cape Verde, but those arguments have been rejected in the first instance.

[Iván Duque says that there is a dictatorship in Venezuela but he does not think the same about Cuba]

The extradition has caused joy in the Venezuelan community and in exile, which sees it as a "certain blow" to the "tyranny" of Nicolás Maduro, as José Antonio Colina, president of Venezolanos Perseguidos, told the EFE news agency this Sunday. Politicians in Exile (Veppex).

“The extradition of Alex Saab to the United States is a source of joy for all Venezuelans.

We will try to attend their hearings and feel the good feeling of seeing a corrupt person brought to justice! ”Colina wrote on Twitter.

Saab will appear on Monday at 1 pm (Eastern time) before Federal Judge John J. O'Sullivan, of the Southern District of Florida, who will be in charge of the "welcome", which journalists will be able to access through the program of Zoom videochat, as confirmed to EFE this Saturday by a State Department official.

However, the judge in the Saab case, opened in 2019 at the request of the District Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, is Charles N. Scola.

what he is acussed?

Saab is charged with seven counts of money laundering and one of conspiracy to commit this crime and has been subject since May 2019 to sanctions from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury.

Prosecutors believe that he laundered more than $ 350 million to pay for the Venezuelan president's corruption through the US financial system.

[The presence of Miguel Díaz-Canel and Nicolás Maduro at the CELAC summit in Mexico causes controversy]

OFAC sanctioned him for his alleged participation in several large-scale corruption schemes around the construction of popular housing, distribution of food to the poorest and illicit operations with Venezuelan gold.

According to OFAC, Saab and his partner, Álvaro Pulido, a Colombian and a fugitive from the US justice system, had access to the leadership of the Maduro regime through Cilia Adela Flores, the president's wife, and their children Walter, Yosser and Yoswal, and a cousin of these, Carlos Erica Malpica Flores.

All of them and many other people are sanctioned by OFAC, for being part of "a network of corruption and nepotism."

As a result of the sanctions, the assets that these individuals and entities may have under US jurisdiction are frozen and they are prohibited from carrying out financial transactions with the US.

US congressmen such as the Republican María Elvira Salazar, representative for South Florida, the Venezuelan ambassador in Washington, Carlos Vecchio, who responds to the opposition Juan Guaidó, whom the US considers interim president of Venezuela, opposition leaders, exiles and Venezuelan citizens living in the US have expressed their satisfaction with the extradition.

Salazar pointed out that with the delivery of Saab to the US "we are one step closer and we are not going to stop until Venezuela achieves its freedom."

[Juan Guaidó assures that he will continue to fight against the Nicolás Maduro regime despite the attempted kidnapping he denounced]

Saab's extradition generated a strong condemnation from the Maduro government, which reacted by returning to prison six former directors of the Venezuelan company Citgo, a subsidiary of the state oil company PDVSA in the United States, who had been convicted of corruption last year and placed under arrest domiciliary.

The directors have Venezuelan and American nationality.