Maduro remains silent on the collaboration of Alex Saab with the DEA

A graffiti in Caracas that defends the innocence of Alex Saab, imprisoned in the United States for money laundering for Chavismo. Carolina Cabral (Bloomberg)

Nicolás Maduro has remained silent during the first hours after the new revelations about the case of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, who indicate that he was an informant for the DEA (United States Narcotics Administration) since 2018. It is a blow against the narrative that has been built by Chavismo that defends him since his investiture as a diplomat, a title he was given six months after being arrested in Cape Verde in June 2020. Washington, for its part, considers him a key player in unraveling corruption of the Venezuelan Government, since he is designated as an alleged figurehead for high positions in the environment of the president and financial operator in his most critical stage, when he began to be surrounded by sanctions.

Some members of his government, however, have advanced that it is a lie.

On Wednesday, while Saab appeared again in a court in Miami, a forum was held in Caracas to raise a flag in his defense in which his wife, Camilla Fabri, and the Vice Minister of Anti-Blockade Policies, William Castillo, a member of the Chavista delegation in the negotiations in Mexico.

The space that was announced as a discussion about the impact of the economic blockade on the country and the case of the Colombian businessman was the platform for the first reactions.

The main argument that they have outlined to question the information revealed is that if Saab were a collaborator with the US justice he would not have been subjected to more than a year in prison in Cape Verde, which for Chavismo was a kidnapping,

“You are required to maintain the highest levels of secrecy”

According to the revelations made by the prosecutors, Saab began conversations with DEA ​​agents in 2016 in Bogotá and would have begun to offer information since June 2018, shortly after the Chavista government declared him a special envoy with broad powers to do efforts for the country, as they assured after their arrest in Cape Verde.

A letter signed by then Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, leaked a year ago, proves his appointment.

Another official communication addressed to Saab after his arrest in Cape Verde confirms his charge and warns him not to reveal the information he possesses.

“In the event of being extradited to the United States, you will be pressured by any method, legitimate or not, to reveal said information,” Arreaza wrote.

The president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez, offered a press conference with national and international media this Thursday, in which he avoided referring to the issue.

When asked by a journalist, he also questioned the prosecutors' revelations: "If so, why did they knock out two teeth by beating him in Cape Verde, why was he tortured, why are they keeping him in inhumane conditions in a cell, why subject him to psychological terrorism?

Why?

It's weird, isn't it?” she questioned.

The agreement with the DEA implied that Saab would be delivered on May 30, 2019, something that did not happen and precipitated the end of the collaboration.

Two months later he was placed on the OFAC list and charged with laundering $350 million in government contracts.

According to the declassified documents released by AP, Saab also promised to return the illicit profits he had obtained together with his partner Álvaro Pulido – still a fugitive – and made four transfers to the DEA for more than 12 million dollars.

Among Saab's lawyers there seem to be mixed views.

The Baker & Hostetler law firm issued a statement on Wednesday in which they assure that Saab continues to be a "loyal citizen" and "diplomat" of the Government of Venezuela.

In addition, they warn that the disclosure of the documents that indicate him as a DEA informant are "an attempt to harm the interests of Venezuela, to try to weaken the strength of Alex Saab's relationship with Venezuela and further evidence the weakness of the criminal accusations made against him.”

Instead, the attorney who assisted him at the hearing, Neil Shuster, repeatedly asked the judge for the Southern District of Florida not to release the documents.

“If his honor did, I think there would be reprisals, physical, judicial, very powerful reprisals.

Please, the honor of him.

Please reconsider that," pleaded the defense.

“He has five children, some of whom are minors, and he has a wife there, and they are basically under the control of the government,” the transcript of Wednesday's hearing reads.

"Saab was playing with fire," journalist Gerardo Reyes, who last year published a book about the businessman that already revealed details of his denunciation agreements with US security agents, told the AP.

“He believed that he could work as a informer for the prosecution and at the same time pretend that he was being persecuted by Yankee imperialism.

In the end they burned it."

In courts in the United States, Spain and Andorra, other charges involved with the Chavista corruption of the last two decades are accused, which has left a huge patrimonial hole in the oil country.

One of them is that of Alejandro Andrade, Hugo Chávez's escort and treasurer of the nation, who was sentenced in 2018 to 10 years in prison for laundering almost a billion bolívares in bribes.

The former official, who obtained a reduced sentence for having offered information to the US justice system and handed over some assets, was released this week.

Former intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal and another former treasurer, Claudia Díaz, await extradition to the United States in Madrid.

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