Alex Saab at center of U.S. - Venezuela diplomatic tug of war

The latest bit of chatter is that Alex Saab's possible release from imprisonment in Cape Verde back to Venezuela is being used as leverage by President Joe Biden's administration to negotiate with Nicolas Maduro. President Biden, has to be said, inherited a clusterfuck of a situation with Venezuela created by Trump and co. The untangling of that mess isn't, of course, anywhere near the top of Biden's priorities. Meagre efforts to "impose electoral conditions" and similar nonsense are still being made by State Dept officials, and in that game Saab is a trump card. This site, however, keeps hearing from different sources that there's quite an intense opposition among three letter law enforcement agencies and Dept. of Justice to just let Saab slip in exchange for this or that meaningless political concession.

Saab's connection to Maduro is not the only consideration that applies here. For Saab's partner, German Rubio Salas, is a convicted drug trafficker that used to lead Bogota's Cartel. Saab is also connected to Colombian politicians known for their links to drug cartels. The value of Saab's knowledge of Maduro's personal, as well as political set ups can not be quantified, for there's also Saab's own links / operations in Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Malta, Switzerland, the Middle East, Turkey, Russia, China.

The U.S. has spent billions of dollars over the last decades helping Colombia combat narco terrorism. It has spent untold amounts of taxpayers' money on the war on drugs. It beggars belief that the Biden administration would even consider freeing someone as valuable as Saab, from an intelligence gathering point of view, simply to score irrelevant points, or to exchange him for Venezuelan energy officials involved in corruption. For it needs to be stressed, all chavista officials are corrupt. The closer to the top of the pile they sit, the more corrupt they are. What is this nonsense then, of offering to swap someone like Saab for a bunch of corrupt chavistas? What difference is there, between them and, say, Rafael Ramirez? Or Diego Salazar? Who knew that having a green card exonerates corruption? Don't tell Saab...

We are of the opinion that Saab should be extradited, so he can face DoJ's charges. It remains a mystery why the process of extradition from Cape Verde has taken this long, considering for instance how the DEA acted in Haiti, upon arrest of Maduro's narco nephews.