NEW YORK – Venezuelan businessman and former Maduro ally Alex Saab has been formally charged by U.S. prosecutors in connection with an alleged international money laundering and corruption scheme tied to Venezuela’s CLAP food program and the state oil company PDVSA.
The charges were revealed Monday in federal court in Miami after Saab was deported to the United States over the weekend.
According to U.S. court documents cited by Reuters, AP, and Spanish newspaper El País, prosecutors accuse Saab of conspiring with others to bribe Venezuelan officials in order to secure lucrative government contracts linked to the CLAP food distribution program between 2015 and 2019.
U.S. authorities allege that Saab and his associates used fake companies, falsified invoices, and fraudulent shipping documents to divert hundreds of millions of dollars intended for food imports for Venezuelans.
The indictment further alleges that Saab later used his influence within the Venezuelan government to gain access to billions of dollars worth of oil belonging to Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), which was allegedly sold under false pretenses. Prosecutors claim proceeds from those transactions were transferred through bank accounts in South Florida in an effort to conceal illicit funds and continue the alleged CLAP scheme.
Journalist David Alandete was among the first to report details surrounding the formal indictment.
Saab, once portrayed by the Venezuelan government as a diplomatic envoy and key ally of former President Nicolás Maduro, now faces renewed criminal prosecution in the United States after previously being released in 2023 as part of a prisoner exchange negotiated during the Biden administration.
At the time of his release in 2023, Saab was welcomed back to Venezuela as a political hero by the Maduro government. However, political dynamics within Venezuela shifted dramatically following Maduro’s removal from power earlier this year and the rise of interim leader Delcy Rodríguez.
Reuters reported that Saab’s deportation signals a new level of cooperation between Venezuelan authorities and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Legal analysts believe Saab could now become a potentially important witness in broader U.S. investigations into corruption, sanctions evasion, and financial networks tied to the former Venezuelan government.
The CLAP program, originally created by the Venezuelan government as a subsidized food distribution system during the country’s economic crisis, has faced years of allegations involving inflated contracts, corruption, and misuse of public funds.