The Colombian businessman’s confession of guilt before the US justice system Alex Saabdesignated as the front man of Nicolas Maduromarks a new milestone in Venezuelan investigative journalism and justice.
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Almost a decade after the first revelations began to unravel the network of frontmen, overpricing and dark businesses behind the Clap – the Venezuelan government program created in 2016 to distribute subsidized basic food house to house and prefabricated housing -, journalist Roberto Deniz, of the portal Armando.infor, remember in conversation with EL TIEMPO How do I get to the heart of this story of political complicity on both sides of the border? and hidden framework that the regime tried to shield and that cost it exile.
Roberto Deniz, Venezuelan journalist and member of the media Armando.info. Photo:Private file
Today, Saab’s judicial reality vindicates a truth that Venezuelan and Colombian reporters dared to tell when doing so was equivalent to an arrest warrant in the neighboring country.
What clue motivated you to start an investigation into Alex Saab?
Almost from the very birth of Armando.info As an independent media dedicated to investigative journalism in Venezuela, back in 2014, different sources began to tell us about this character. By then, not much was known who Alex Saab was or what he was doing in Venezuela; even within the Chavista government itself.
What followed?
This reporting led to the publication of a first report on the prefabricated house business with the company Global Construction Fundwhich had a registration in Colombia, but was created to do business in Venezuela with the so-called Housing Mission. That was the origin of why this name sounded familiar to us.
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By then, Maduro was selling the Clap program as an exceptional achievement…
In 2016, when Nicolás Maduro made the program of the Clapwe in Armando.info We began to investigate its origin because there were things that did not coincide with the official discourse. While Maduro sold it as a plan to produce food at the communal level, we quickly saw that it translated into massive food imports in the midst of the worst crisis, shortages and inflation.
We began to pull the thread and saw that millions of dollars were being granted to newly established companies in tax havens with no history in the food industry. A third strange factor was that the imports came from Mexico, despite the bad political relationship at the time. This is how we discover ghost companies like Group Grand Limited in Hong Kong, which was driving Mr. Álex Saab.
What consequence did this research have for you?
Towards the end of 2016 and in 2017 we published at least three reports dismantling the entire Clap structure and showing the enormous markups. After this, we had a first judicial reaction: Alex Saab sued the three founding editors and me in Venezuela for defamation and continued aggravated insult. In Chavismo, crimes of opinion are criminal and punishable by several years in prison.
Alex Saab, designated by the US as an alleged figurehead of the deposed president Nicolás Maduro. Photo:EFE
So did exile come?
That led us to leave Venezuela between the end of 2017 and January 2018 to protect ourselves and avoid precautionary measures such as the retention of passports. We thought it would be a few months, but we are in 2026 and none of them have been able to return. Ironically, that Saab lawsuit is still open in a Caracas court. In my particular case, continuing to investigate led to two new accusations with arrest warrants in Venezuela, files fabricated by former prosecutor Tarek William Saab.
saab step from being captured in Cape Verde in June 2020 to be extradited to the US a year later to finally return to Venezuela at the end of 2023 after an inprisoner exchange between Washington and the Maduro government. How did they take their return to freedom and again in Caracas?
That image from December 2023 is probably the first public one of Nicolás Maduro with Saab. It was convenient for Maduro to keep him in the shadows, but when he was arrested in Cape Verde in 2020 and extradited to the US, Maduro was desperate to bring him back to prevent him from cooperating.
He has already agreed to deliver at least 195 million dollars to US justice and promised to deliver documented and proven information that would allow progress against others involved in his network and, possibly, against Nicolás Maduro himself (mentioned in the documents as official government).
But, then came the capture of Maduro by the United States…
After the fall of Maduro and the assumption of Delcy Rodríguez, Saab was dismissed as Minister of Industry and secretly detained in Caracas. In May of this year he was sent to the United States under the figure of deportationappealing to the fact that he was a Colombian citizen with a false ID in Venezuela (thus avoiding the debate on the constitutional prohibition on extraditing Venezuelans).
Upon arriving in the United States, he was accused of money laundering associated with the Claps. This week, his attorneys notified the court that changes his initial statement and admits guilt in crimes of money laundering and conspiracy in international transactions. He has already agreed to deliver at least 195 million dollars to US justice and promised to deliver documented and proven information that would allow progress against others involved in his network and, possibly, against Nicolás Maduro himself (mentioned in the documents as official government).
Who else could Saab compromise, besides Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores?
There are the names of Vielma Mora (according to receiving about 17 million dollars in bribes for the Clap), Álvaro Pulido Vargas (Saab’s regular partner), the children of Cilia Flores and other businessmen. Having to provide valuable information, I do not rule out that the biggest loser is Nicolás Maduro himself, who could face new accusations in Florida. Saab was a man who managed money routes, corruption schemes, bribery, dealings with Iran and Russia, and sanctions evasion for more than a decade.
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Turning to the Colombian side, how is the justice system in that country knowing that Alex Saab also had investigations that were unsuccessful?
The Colombian justice system is left in a very bad position. The accusations in the US are different from what was originally investigated in Colombia, which was limited to family businesses in Barranquilla (such as Shatex) in the pre-mature stage. There were many irregularities in a Barranquilla court: They changed the judge, a ready sentence disappeared and another was issued that ended up acquitting him with a simple financial penalty. The Prosecutor’s Office never opened a specific investigation for using Colombia in its business with Venezuela.
Furthermore, the current president of Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella, was Alex Saab’s star lawyer for years and publicly defended his innocence despite the evidence. Although US prosecutor Michael Nadler has said that at the time Saab tried to negotiate with US justice through his lawyers – recognizing that half of every dollar contracted in Venezuela went to the accounts of Maduro’s relatives – the role of justice and political actors in Colombia leaves many doubts.
In his investigations he also talks about “Gustavo Petro’s friends” involved in the oil business, including his ex-wife Verónica Alcocer and the Spaniard Manel Grau. What do you know about that?
In Armando.info We published that President Petro’s entourage quickly sought to do oil business in Venezuela. Delcy Rodríguez, as Minister of Petroleum, gave this group a Productive Participation Contract (CPP) in PDVSA to exploit oil in the Apure-Barinas basin through a company called Colven Business Corp. Manel Grau created this company and accompanied Verónica Alcocer on official visits to Caracas. As far as we have information, that contract is still in force.
The Catalan Manuel Grau with Verónica Alcocer. Photo:express
What to expect from what is to come regarding the Saab plot, knowing that it has numerous businesses in Caracas ranging from food, clothing, to media, and that they have not yet been touched by the administration of Delcy Rodríguez?
In the United States, the next thing is the sentencing hearing set for January of next year. There we will know, depending on the reduction of your sentence, how useful your collaboration was. In Venezuela, the tragedy is that, being the place where this character should have been investigated the most, it is where the least has been done, mainly because of the power he had. Even today, Delcy Rodríguez’s delivery of Saab was a way of washing his hands. There are still untouchable assets and associates of his imprisoned in Venezuela, such as Álvaro Pulido Vargas and Carlos Liscano.
Do you think there may be other Alex Saabs in Venezuela?
Yes, there are, of course there are. Venezuela today is a kleptocratic system. Today it is the Rodríguez, at the time it was El Aissami, if we go further back, Rafael Ramírez, the Chávez, in short, each of these political groups that has been consolidated in this system that has been in power in Venezuela for almost 30 years, is full of this type of intermediary operators who, let’s give them whatever name we want, have enriched themselves with Venezuelan public funds as if it were their wallet and who, unfortunately, have not been investigated.
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What does this recognition of guilt before justice represent for you and your team?
From a personal and professional point of view, for the Armando.info team this represents a kind of final chapter where he himself ends up accepting what a defamation lawsuit cost us for years. It is a boost from public opinion so that people understand that what we published was completely documented and corroborated. That was our duty as journalists, and that is why we decided to go out: telling it was imperative in the midst of the worst crisis in Venezuela.
ANA MARÍA RODRÍGUEZ BRAZÓN – EL TIEMPO Correspondent – Caracas
