Colombian businessman Alex Saab, long regarded as Venezuelan dictator Nicols Maduros chief financial fixer, was reportedly detained in Caracas on Wednesday in a rare joint operation involving both American and Venezuelan authorities.
According to Breitbart, Colombias Caracol Radio and El Colombiano, both citing unnamed sources, reported that Saab was seized in a coordinated effort between the FBI and security forces loyal to the Maduro regime. Reuters, quoting a U.S. law enforcement official, likewise described the action as a joint U.S.-Venezuela operation and indicated that Saab is expected to be extradited to the United States in the coming days.
Saab, 54, had previously been arrested by U.S. authorities in Cape Verde in 2020 and faced trial on charges of exploiting the American financial system to launder $350 million looted from Venezuelan state coffers. During President Donald Trumps first term, Washington sanctioned Saab in 2019 for his central role in the regimes notoriously corrupt CLAP food program, which critics say weaponized hunger to keep Venezuelans politically submissive.
Those sanctions were effectively undone when former President Joe Biden freed Saab and sent him back to Caracas in December 2023 as part of a prisoner swap with Maduro. The Biden administration insisted at the time that Saabs release would supposedly help stem the massive wave of Venezuelan migrants entering the United States by addressing the root causes of migration.
Maduro, eager to showcase defiance toward the United States, staged a heros welcome for Saab upon his return to Venezuela. He soon elevated Saab further, appointing him Industries Minister, a powerful economic post that he held until mid-January, when acting President Delcy Rodrguez abruptly removed him from office.
As of press time, officials from Venezuelas socialist regime have neither confirmed nor denied reports of Saabs renewed detention, fueling speculation about internal power struggles. Saabs attorney, Luigi Giuliano, told Colombian outlet El Espectador that the reports of his clients arrest are fake news and insisted that he is calm in Caracas.
At a Wednesday night press conference, Jorge Rodrguez, head of the socialist-controlled National Assembly and one of Maduros closest lieutenants, conspicuously sidestepped questions about Saabs fate. I am a congressman; this is not within my area of expertise, and I have no authority or information regarding the matter you are raising, Rodrguez said.
In a development that could further rattle the regimes inner circle, both Caracol Radio and Reuters reported that Venezuelan businessman Ral Gorrn was also detained in the same joint operation. Gorrn, a fugitive tycoon widely believed to be closely aligned with Maduro, was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Florida in 2024 for his alleged role in a $1.2-billion money laundering scheme.
Gorrn cemented his influence in 2013 when he acquired an 80-percent controlling stake in Globovisin, then Venezuelas only private television network openly critical of the socialist government. Under his ownership, the channel abandoned its opposition stance and adopted what it calls a centrist line, a shift many Venezuelans view as thinly veiled capitulation to the regime.
The Trump administration sanctioned Gorrn in 2019, accusing him of systemic corruption and of exploiting Venezuelas rigid foreign currency controls to siphon off more than $2.4 billion in illicit proceeds. If the reported arrests of Saab and Gorrn are confirmed and extraditions proceed, Washington could gain unprecedented leverage over two men who allegedly helped bankroll Maduros socialist project, raising fresh questions about why the Biden White House ever chose to return Saab to Caracas in the first place.
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