UPDATED - Alex Saab: a very special "citizen of Venezuela"

UPDATED 11/25/2022 - 09:11 EST - Once upon a time, when Hugo Chavez was still alive, chavismo used to signal that it cared about keeping up with laws. It was all a pretence of course, but it did bother with forms somewhat. A good example was publication in Official Gazette of names of those who had been granted Venezuelan citizenship. The former editor of this site revealed in late 2010 that Rodrigo Granda, commander of Colombia's narco terrorist group FARC, had been naturalised as Venezuelan on July 9th 2004. The information was duly published in the Official Gazette. Further research revealed that Chavez had also granted citizenship to Arturo Cubillas, member of Basque's terrorist group ETA and wanted for murder, on August 9th 2004. Now chavismo, and its mouthpieces, are insisting -without providing valid proof- that Alex Saab is not only a Venezuelan citizen, but a special one: a "diplomat", a "special envoy".

Let's analyse the case of Alex Saab's own brother: Amir Luis Saab Moran, born July 29th 1970. Amir is a naturalised Venezuelan. Like Alex he was born in Colombia, from same father and mother. After naturalisation, Amir got an ID number (24978833), like all Venezuelans must have. Also like all Venezuelans of voting age, Amir was automatically added / registered in the National Electoral Roll (REP), whose details anyone can check in the Electoral authorities' website.

While this site has no evidence about Amir's naturalisation having been published in Official Gazette, the fact that his ID number appears in the electoral roll is enough corroboration of steps taken after naturalisation, to make it official in some way. The same applies to Cubillas: his ID number does appear registered in the electoral roll.

But Alex, like his narcoterrorist compatriot Granda, is a peculiar Venezuelan. His ID number, 21495350, is not registered in the electoral roll. That is, allegedly he is a Venezuelan, with official responsibilities as Nicolas Maduro's "special envoy", but he can't vote. There are no records of his name (Alex Nain Saab Moran) in Venezuela's Electoral Roll.

Furthermore, his ID number seems particularly special. It belongs in a group of ID numbers that are not associated to any data whatsoever. According to official documents produced in the context of arrest and extradition to the U.S., Venezuelan authorities claim Alex Nain Saab Moran's ID number is 21495350.

A search for that number in official databases returns no results, but neither do searches for ID numbers close to that of Saab. Running grep searches in Venezuela's electoral database between ID numbers 21495200 and 21495999 return nothing. In other words, Saab's 21495350 Venezuelan ID belongs to a group of 799 ID numbers that do not have any data associated to it.

Like Granda, Saab was given an ID number that is not recorded anywhere in electoral records. Searches for "21495350 site:.gob.ve" return no records.

In addition, his ID number is lower to that of his brother Amir, which suggests that he was naturalised before, however there are no records of it. 

The forged Official Gazette that Saab's lawyers from Baker Hostetler furnished the court recently in Florida has another rather peculiar and most unusual characteristic: it does not contain Saab's ID number.

Historically, in basically all announcements regarding diplomatic roles published in Venezuela's Official Gazette, ID details of appointed individuals are always included.

Similarly, the letter that former Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza used "to prove" that Saab had been designated as "special envoy" did not include details of Saab's ID number.

The only database where Saab's ID number appear is that of tax authority (SENIAT). Tellingly, no one has seen Saab's tax contributions / payments. 

UPDATE 11/25/2022 - 09:11 EST:

Sources have shared with this site Alex Saab's tax declarations. The document shows an address in Caracas' Country Club, a telephone number that when used in Whatsapp states "Alex Saab uses a default timer for disappearing messages in new chats...", and describes Saab as an "analyst".

Saab started paying taxes in Venezuela in 2017, when he declared 6,635.34 Bolivares worth of global income in 2016. Saab's reported global income for 2017 was 7.297.68 Bolivares.

In 2019, Saab only paid 3,245.60 Bolivares in tax, which suggests 9,550 Bolivares worth of income.