Confusion reigns after reports of arrest of Maduro fixer Alex Saab in Venezuela
Alex Saab, a once-powerful fixer for Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro who spent years fighting U.S. corruption charges, was detained for questioning early Wednesday by authorities in Venezuela, according to multiple Colombian media outlets.
Venezuelan authorities, however, have neither confirmed nor denied the reports, offering a series of unusual and at times contradictory public responses about the fate of the former regime insider.
Saab, a Colombia-born businessman, was previously held in Miami as the main defendant in a $350 million money-laundering conspiracy case that was dismissed in December 2023 after he was pardoned by then-President Joe Biden as part of a prisoner exchange with the Venezuelan government. He had been extradited to the U.S. from Cape Verde, where he claimed to be a Venezuelan envoy entitled to diplomatic immunity.
Following Biden’s pardon, Saab was released from federal custody before trial and returned to Venezuela. More than two years later — and weeks after Maduro was seized by U.S. forces in early January on drug-trafficking charges filed in New York — Saab could once again face federal corruption and money-laundering charges in Miami, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Colombian TV network Caracol Televisión reported that Saab was detained by Venezuela’s domestic intelligence service, SEBIN. The arrest was later confirmed by Colombian radio stations Caracol Radio and Blu Radio, as well as by the Reuters news service, which cited a U.S. official in Washington.
Venezuelan officials, however, have declined to acknowledge the arrest, and senior figures have given evasive or conflicting answers when questioned.
Late Wednesday, Jorge Rodríguez, president of the regime-controlled National Assembly and brother of interim President Delcy Rodríguez, said he had no knowledge of Saab’s whereabouts.
“I am a member of parliament; this is not within my purview, and I have neither the authority nor the information regarding what you are asking about,” Rodríguez said.
On Thursday, Venezuela’s attorney general, Tarek William Saab, who is not related to Alex Saab, also gave contradictory statements. Asked by Colombian radio station La FM about reports of Saab’s detention, he initially dismissed them as “fake news,” but called back minutes later to say he had “no information” on the matter.
Since reports of the arrest surfaced Wednesday, there has been no public statement from Saab or his family, and they have not been seen in public. Saab’s Miami-based defense lawyers, Joseph Schuster and Neil Schuster, declined to comment on developments in Venezuela.
Saab’s reported detention comes three weeks after he was removed as Venezuela’s industry minister by Delcy Rodríguez, following the U.S. military operation last month that led to Maduro’s apprehension in Caracas.
Colombian outlets also reported that Venezuelan television tycoon Raúl Gorrín had been detained alongside Saab. Sources told the Miami Herald that Gorrín was taken in for questioning but was released a few hours later.
The circumstances surrounding Saab’s arrest remain unclear, including whether it reflects cooperation between Venezuela’s interim government and U.S. law enforcement, or an internal move by Caracas to sideline a politically sensitive figure.
Colombian media reported that the detention took place in the early morning hours, fueling speculation that extradition proceedings could follow.
U.S. law enforcement officials contacted by the Herald said they were not aware of any plans to extradite Saab to the United States.
If confirmed, Saab’s detention would mark the latest dramatic turn in one of the most tangled legal and political sagas linked to Venezuelan corruption cases pursued by U.S. prosecutors.
A close ally of Maduro, Saab was released from U.S. custody in December 2023 following a presidential pardon and clemency deal. The businessman, who had been facing money-laundering charges in Florida, was exchanged for 10 American citizens and a fugitive U.S. defense contractor. He later returned to Venezuela, where Maduro appointed him to his cabinet.
For years, U.S. investigators regarded Saab, now 54, as one of the Maduro government’s central financial operators, accusing him of amassing hundreds of millions of dollars through bribery schemes tied to food, housing and energy contracts while hiding assets across the United States, Europe and elsewhere.
In 2019, federal prosecutors in Miami charged Saab with laundering more than $350 million in proceeds linked to corrupt Venezuelan government housing contracts. Authorities said he was among dozens of officials, businessmen and contractors who siphoned billions of dollars from the Venezuelan state during the Chávez and Maduro years, often through deals involving the state oil company PDVSA.
Several defendants in those cases — including two former Venezuelan national treasury chiefs — were convicted after cooperating with U.S. authorities, while others remain at large.
Saab was first detained in June 2020 in Cape Verde on an Interpol red notice while his plane refueled en route to Iran. He claimed he was traveling as a special envoy for Maduro on a gold-for-gasoline mission — a claim later rejected by U.S. courts.
After a prolonged legal battle, Saab was extradited to the U.S. in October 2021 and held in a federal jail in Miami. In December 2022, U.S. District Judge Robert Scola ruled that Saab did not have diplomatic immunity, accusing the Venezuelan government of submitting doctored documents to support the claim.
“At the time he was arrested, Saab... truly was no diplomat at all,” Scola wrote.
While Saab was in U.S. custody, his legal team insisted he would never plead guilty. Court records later revealed, however, that Saab had previously acted as a confidential informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, secretly cooperating for nearly a year beginning in 2016. During that period, prosecutors said, Saab recorded conversations with co-conspirators and transferred more than $12 million to a DEA-controlled account.
That cooperation ended in 2019 after Saab failed to surrender to U.S. agents.
Gorrín, meanwhile, faces his own legal problems in the United States.
In October 2024, Gorrín was charged with conspiring to launder $1.2 billion that federal authorities say he and other associates stole from Venezuela’s government to invest in Europe and the United States, including luxury real estate in South Florida.
Gorrín, owner of the Globovisión TV network in Caracas, is accused of plotting to bribe top officials at Venezuela’s state-owned oil company in exchange for access to lucrative government loan contracts, according to an indictment in Miami federal court. Prosecutors say the loan payments were routed through the government’s preferential currency-exchange system, producing windfall profits.
Gorrín, 57, a close ally of the late President Hugo Chávez and of Maduro, was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted.
His case grew out of a broader Miami indictment filed in 2018 that charged eight associates with looting PDVSA, including senior executives and lawyers. Since then, five additional defendants — including Gorrín — have been charged. About half have pleaded guilty and been sentenced, including several who provided evidence against Gorrín. Others remain at large in Venezuela or Europe.
In late 2018, Gorrín was also charged in a massive money-laundering racket to drain more than $1 billion from Venezuela’s government and move the illicit money through U.S. banks and luxury real estate investments, according to an indictment in Miami. The indictment charged Gorrín with conspiring to bribe Venezuelan officials, including former national treasurer Alejandro Andrade, who pleaded guilty and served prison time in the United States.
A Miami Herald correspondent in Venezuela contributed to this story.
