Sunday, May 17th 2026 - 05:07 UTC
The United States sanctioned him in 2019 for allegedly paying bribes to obtain no-bid contracts with the Venezuelan state
The Venezuelan government on Saturday deported to the United States the Colombian businessman Alex Saab, considered for years the main financial operator of former president Nicolás Maduro and minister of Industry and National Production until January 2026. The businessman landed at sunset at Opa-locka airport in Miami-Dade County, escorted by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), bringing to a close a judicial file that had turned Saab into one of the most visible symbols of the economic apparatus of Chavismo and into one of the most wanted figures by US justice over the past decade.
The Administrative Service for Identification, Migration, and Foreign Nationals (SAIME) announced the measure through an official communiqué stating that the decision had been taken “in compliance with the provisions of Venezuelan migration legislation” and citing as its rationale that Saab “is engaged in the commission of various crimes in the United States of America, as is public, notorious, and a matter of media record.” Official sources cited by the newspaper El País said the handover had already been planned and was completed once “the appropriate circumstances” for his deportation arose. The businessman had accumulated charges for several offenses not only in the United States but also in Colombia and Venezuela, and is accused of having been behind a defamation campaign against the Chavista leadership in recent months.
