alex saab

UPDATE 08/05/2020 - 09:55 GMT | Alex Saab adventures into oil aren't new. There was a time when he had to make use of "decent" intermediaries, like Jean Paul Rivas, in energy trading attempts. No more. U.S. Treasury sanctions have pushed PDVSA into Saab's arms. He is no longer toxic. His characteristic stench goes undetected in the company of Nicolas Maduro, Cilia, and Tareck el Aisami: Venezuela's new oil minister.

"...Ratificamos igualmente, que la unica fiscal general de la república en Venezuela se llama Luisa Ortega Diaz..." Assemblywoman Delsa Solorzano, 7 August 2017. Then, there's this session, when Julio Borges (current "presidential commissioner for foreign relations" for Juan Guaido) welcomed Luisa Ortega Diaz to Venezuela's Assembly (this was prior to his escape to Colombia, after a car he was in ran over a child that subsequently died).

Infodio.com, 11 October 2018:

This site can report that both Alex Saab and Abelardo de la Espriella are persons of interest for U.S. Department of Justice, FBI and DEA. Given his partnership with Rubio (Pulido Vargas) and Cordoba, Saab has been under scrutiny for quite some time. Saab, who left for Rome just before the recent Colombian probe was announced in late September, has also become a person of interest for Italy's financial watchdog.

Yesterday, Treasury sanctioned Alex Saab, while a DoJ's Grand Jury in South Florida indicted him and partner-in-crime Alvaro Pulido Vargas a/k/a German Rubio (see indictment below). This site took an interest in Alex Saab back in July 2013. I recall having been in touch with Ecuadorian journalist Gabriela Quiroz in the course of my research. At the time, Saab was involved in a multimillion-dollar racket with SUCRE, a regional currency exchange mechanism set up by Hugo Chavez and his socialist allies.

Much before Reuters "discovered" in an "exclusive" some of the corruption associated with Alex Saab, his Colombian lawyer, Abelardo de la Espriella, went to battle with Revista Semana, one of Colombia's most prestigious political affairs magazine.