alex saab

Features of modern life always get late to Venezuela. Investigative journalism was one of them. When we started learning the ropes and posting breaking stories about Venezuelan rampant corruption, in the early 2000s, nobody was publishing investigative journalism work in English online. Our first series, about propaganda outfit Venezuela Information Office, exposed Andres Izarra, Eva Golinger, Greg Wilpert, Mark Weisbrot, Code Pink, TransAfrica Forum, Michael Schellenberger and a whole bunch of psycophantic paid agents.

On 12 June, Alex Saab was arrested in Cape Verde on an INTERPOL notice. Upon Saab's arrest, Venezuela's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jorge Arreaza, revealed that Saab was not only a Venezuelan citizen but an agent of Nicolas Maduro's regime travelling on official affairs, therefore protected by diplomatic immunity.

In late April, we were arguing about Alex Saab's role in Libre Abordo and latter's activities in becoming global standard in avoidance of Treasury sanctions:

PDVSA has ceased its trading operations almost completely, owing mainly to "bankruptcy" of Libre Abordo and arrest in Cape Verde of Alex Saab, PDVSA's de facto largest trader. Latest data from June shows ENI (Delta Captain, Delta Tolmi) and Repsol (Delta Med, Delta Angelica) are due to lift Merey cargoes. 3.6 MB altogether. That's it. There's no one else.

There's been frantic commentary over the weekend due to arrest last Friday of Alex Saab (Nicolas Maduro's favourite operator) in Cape Verde. Colombia moved last week against Saab, seizing and freezing some of his assets and placing him on INTERPOL's blue notice list. But this is Cape Verde, and Alex Saab, so alleged expedite extradition to face U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) charges was never going to be a straighforward affair. As of this writing, Saab is still in Cape Verde, not going anywhere in a hurry.

Colombia's Attorney General's Office announced yesterday morning that it was seizing and freezing seven properties that belong to Alex Saab. Located in Barranquilla (Saab's former base before his rag to billionaire status thanks to chavismo) the lot is valued at around $9.7 million (USD).

Internal documents from PDVSA's SAP system seen by this site corroborate that Proton Sociedad Limitada and Schlager Business Group, the subsidiary of Libre Abordo, are used interchangeably by Alex Saab in crude lifting operations in Venezuela. The system also shows Libre Abordo and other shells controlled by Saab are under prepayment terms. It is not the first time PDVSA imposes such terms on its trading operations.

Further to yesterday's report regarding Libre Abordo, its "bankruptcy" and Venezuela's announcement to take its case to the Intternational Criminal Court (ICC), this site can confirm that far from being out of business, Libre Abordo and Alex Saab continue to do deals with PDVSA and the Maduro regime through Proton Sociedad Limitada.

A couple days ago Reuters "reported" that Libre Abordo, the dodgy Mexican shell w/out a track record to speak of that entered into a "humanitarian food-for-oil agreement" with Venezuela's CORPOVEX, was "bankrupt." Till end of April, Libre Abordo and its subsidiary Schlager Business Group had lifted over 26MB of PDVSA crude in a period of about six months.

UPDATED 22:19 | The Chinese virus must be affecting Reuters' editorial desks in Brazil and Mexico.