Alex Saab arrived Saturday at a Miami airport after being deported by the Venezuelan government to the United States, where he faces charges for alleged crimes in the country, according to the Venezuelan Administrative Service for Identification, Migration and Foreigners (SAIME).
The EFE news agency confirmed Saab’s arrival, escorted by federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), including members of the DEA, at Opa-locka Airport in Miami-Dade County at 9:15 p.m. local time (1:15 a.m. GMT).
For several weeks, the whereabouts of the alleged frontman and ally of former dictator Nicolás Maduro had been unknown. New images of the detained man showed him looking tired and wearing a gray tracksuit, similar to the outfit worn by the former leader of the Venezuelan regime after his capture on January 3 in Caracas.
According to AlbertoNews, Saab was transferred under custody from El Helicoide prison to Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, where a Gulfstream aircraft, with U.S. registration N550GA, landed moments before and departed for Opa-locka Executive Airport in Miami.
The operation involved agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), along with oversight from the U.S. State Department and the Department of Justice.
“The deportation order was issued considering that the aforementioned Colombian citizen is involved in the commission of various crimes in the United States of America, as is public knowledge and widely reported,” SAIME stated in a press release published via Instagram. The agency specified that the deportation was carried out “in compliance with the provisions of Venezuelan immigration law.”
Federal authorities in Miami accuse Saab of leading money laundering and corruption schemes involving Venezuelan state funds. The US investigation focuses on operations involving hundreds of millions of dollars through public food contracts, primarily linked to the CLAP program.
According to The New York Times, the new Venezuelan government, headed by Rodríguez, arrested Saab in early February at Washington’s request. Previously, US prosecutors filed a corruption indictment against Saab in Miami in January.
The charges against Saab include criminal conspiracy, money laundering, and bribing Venezuelan officials. According to the indictment filed in the Southern District Court of Florida, he allegedly falsified documents and used intermediaries to facilitate international transfers of public funds.
The extradited Saab, who was previously imprisoned in the United States between October 2021 and December 2023, returned to Venezuela after receiving a pardon from then-President Joe Biden.
In October 2024, he was appointed Minister of Industry and National Production, a position from which he was dismissed by interim President Delcy Rodríguez two weeks after the US operation in Caracas that culminated in Maduro’s capture.
The 54-year-old former official of the Venezuelan regime, a personal friend of Maduro, has been accused for years in the United States of illicit enrichment through government contracts and of acting as a front man for the former Chavista leader.
