March 2021

When it comes to the chavista universe of the phenomenally corrupt, Alex Saab has a special place. The seat of honor has his name tag. A Colombian, who didn’t have two pennies to rub together only a decade ago, lands in Venezuela with narcosenator Piedad Córdoba, and in the space of 5 years becomes Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores' most trusted consigliere. Saab has put the entire class of Venezuelan Boligarchs to shame. Venezuela is his turf.

A propos of news yesterday from Cape Verde regarding extradition of Alex Saab, recall Baker & Hostetler idiotic claims about Alex Saab's 'diplomatic immunity', and how such immunity exonerates him not only from jurisdiction of U.S. courts but from criminal prosecution altogether? Well, the U.S. Department of Justice's (DoJ) response to it (see pdf below) is akin to a bitch-slap.

Quoting from source: "MBaer Merchant Bank AG is majority-owned by Swiss investors, while other groups of shareholders are based in Asia and the Middle East. The shareholders include numerous private investors, above all entrepreneurs who are also our clients and are themselves widely connected." [bold added] Frank Glundler is the Chief Compliance Officer of Mbaer Merchant Bank AG.

A well known trope in Venezuela is that Hugo Chavez was the most charismatic politician, and that Nicolas Maduro was just the loyal fool handpicked to continue the "Bolivarian Revolution". When Chavez's death was announced, nobody gave Maduro much of a chance. The thinking was that he was no Chavez, that he didn't have what it took. Maduro has been massively underestimated. For years. Yet he can easily claim to be the shrewdest, more so than even Chavez, whose time in power was aided by the largest oil windfall ever received.