1. Alex Nain Saab Moran was born on 21 December 1971 and is a Colombian-born Venezuelan businessman, who has served as Venezuela's Minister of Industry and National Production since 18 October 2024.
50 Facts About Alex Saab
1. 2.
Alex Saab's name has appeared in multiple ICIJ leaks including the Panama Papers, Pandora Papers and the FinCEN Files.
3.
Alex Saab was enriched by the materials supplier business of the Housing Mission in Venezuela.
4.
Info, a Venezuelan investigative journalist outlet, reported that Alex Saab received US$159 million from the Venezuelan government to import housing materials between 2012 and 2013, but only delivered products worth US$3 million.
5.
Alex Saab later sold food to Venezuela for more than US$200 million in a contract signed by President Nicolas Maduro.
6.
Alex Saab has been investigated by Colombian authorities for allegedly laundering US$25 million between 2004 and 2011.
7.
Alex Saab was arrested in accordance to an Interpol red notice in relation to his indictment in the United States, accused of money laundering.
8.
Alex Saab was extradited to the United States on 16 October 2021 and charged with eight counts of money laundering, accused of moving $350 million out of Venezuela into accounts controlled in the United States and other countries, as well as falsifying documents to obtain contracts for the construction of affordable housing.
9.
In December 2023 Alex Saab was released from jail to be sent back to Venezuela in exchange for ten American prisoners being held in Venezuela in a prisoner exchange.
10.
Alex Saab is the son of a Lebanese immigrant, Luis, who settled in the city of Barranquilla and opened various businesses, including Textiles Saab, finding success in Colombia's textile industry.
11.
Alex Saab attended the German School of Barranquilla, an elite private school.
12.
Alex Saab began his career in Barranquilla at age 18, selling business promotional keychains and subsequently work uniforms.
13.
Alex Saab joined a group of Colombian businessmen who were exporting merchandise to Colombia from Venezuela using the CADIVI currency system.
14.
Alex Saab sued Univision's journalist Gerardo Reyes in the US after Reyes reported on these issues.
15.
Alex Saab was enriched due to the materials supplier business of the Housing Mission in Venezuela.
16.
On 28 November 2011, Alex Saab's Bogota-based company Fondo Global de Construccion signed an agreement with the Venezuelan government, which resulted in a contract of US$685 million for the construction of prefabricated homes in Venezuela as part of la Gran Mision Vivienda housing programme, The signing was attended by presidents Juan Manuel Santos and Hugo Chavez, and Venezuela's then Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.
17.
Info, a Venezuelan investigative journalist outlet, reported that Alex Saab received US$159 million from the Venezuelan government to import housing materials between 2012 and 2013, but only delivered products worth US$3 million.
18.
Alex Saab was investigated by Ecuador's government for alleged money laundering through false exports to Venezuela via Colombia; although Saab was not accused of wrongdoing, in 2013 Ecuadorian prosecutors alleged the company was used to launder more than $130 million, but the case was dropped after several years.
19.
In 2014, Antigua and Barbuda's prime minister Gaston Browne invited Alex Saab to become special economic envoy to Venezuela, granting him Antiguan citizenship.
20.
Alex Saab had a contract to build a factory in Antigua to make housing panels, but the factory never opened.
21.
Alex Saab used the services of Mossack Fonseca, the legal firm at the center of the Panama Papers offshore financing scandal, to create companies abroad.
22.
Alex Saab shared an address with Fondo Global, and executives said Saab worked alongside Carlos Gutierrez, the son of a Colombian agricultural magnate, and Colombian businessman Alvaro Pulido.
23.
In 2019, Alex Saab launched two legal cases in Miami against the Univision TV network for its reporting of his businesses.
24.
Alex Saab had sold food to Venezuela for more than US$200 million in a contract signed by President Nicolas Maduro through a registered company in Hong Kong.
25.
On 23 August 2017, the former Venezuelan attorney general, Luisa Ortega Diaz, said Alex Saab was the co-owner of the Mexican firm supplying food to CLAP, Group Grand Limited, along with Alvaro Pulido and Rofolfo Reyes, who Ortega claimed was "presumably President Nicolas Maduro".
26.
Alex Saab would have met Pulido in 2012, when he was dedicated to supplying the Alex Saab company, but this activity would have stopped doing it in 2014.
27.
The Colombian Prosecution and the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol issued arrest warrants on 24 September 2018 against seven people, including Alex Saab, charged with asset laundering worth US$25 billion between 2004 and 2011, and planned to carry out an operation the following day.
28.
At the moment it was unknown if the indicted group and Alex Saab contacted the DIJIN to leak information regarding the operation or if they were subject of extortion, and the Prosecution was evaluating if Pinto received benefits in exchange of the provided information.
29.
Alex Saab was found not guity of the Colombian charges in May 2024.
30.
David Rivkin, one of Alex Saab's attorneys, said Alex Saab had not cooperated with American officials and the Venezuelan government were aware of all his activities.
31.
Info, as a result of US investigations and sanctions, Alex Saab moved his shell companies to Turkey.
32.
In July 2021 the United Kingdom issued a series of sanctions that included Alex Saab, which included the freezing of assets and travel bans.
33.
Alvaro Enrique Pulido, identified as Alex Saab's associate, was sanctioned, in both cases for ""exploiting two of Venezuela's public programs that were established to provide poor Venezuelans with affordable food and housing", saying that "They both benefited from improperly awarded contracts, in which promised goods were delivered at highly inflated prices.
34.
On 12 June 2020, en route from Venezuela to Iran on a business jet, Alex Saab was arrested during a fuel stop at Cape Verde.
35.
Alex Saab was arrested in accordance to an Interpol red notice in relation to his indictment for money laundering in the United States.
36.
Venezuela's foreign ministry said the Venezuelan government had employed Alex Saab to obtain food, medicine and other humanitarian goods to help Venezuela combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
37.
The New York Times reported that "hard-liners at the Justice and State Departments, including Elliott Abrams, the State Department's special envoy for Iran and Venezuela" were worried that Iranian or Venezuelan operatives could help Alex Saab escape and that the US would "lose an unusual opportunity to punish Mr Maduro".
38.
Alex Saab said in a June 2021 CNN interview that he had been tortured by the authorities in Cape Verde.
39.
The government designed a communication campaign to build an alternative narrative of Alex Saab's affair, showing him as an ally entrepreneur with diplomatic powers that with his efforts had managed to evade economic sanctions and made possible the arrival of food and industrial parts to Venezuela.
40.
In June 2021, the platform Cazadores de Fake News concluded that a marketing company called PromoCoreGH was leading an astroturfing campaign in Ghana in support of Alex Saab, after analyzing 151,725 tweets and fifty Twitter accounts.
41.
The Constitutional Court of Cape Verde heard the parties on 13 August 2021, after Alex Saab's lawyers appealed the decision of the country's Supreme Court of Justice to authorize his extradition to the United States.
42.
On 14 September 2021, Jorge Rodriguez, head of the Venezuelan government's delegation to talks with the Venezuelan opposition mediated by Norway taking place in Mexico, declared that Alex Saab had been appointed a member of the government's negotiation team.
43.
Alex Saab was extradited to the United States on 16 October 2021 and charged with eight counts of money laundering, accused of moving $350 million out of Venezuela into accounts controlled in the United States and other countries, as well as falsifying documents to obtain contracts for the construction of affordable housing, facing up to twenty years in prison.
44.
The documents mentioned how in another meeting in June 2018 Alex Saab admitted paying bribes related to food supply contracts.
45.
The documents state that, as part of the cooperation agreement with the American authorities, Alex Saab wired over $10 million obtained through said operations to the DEA and held several meetings with agents and prosecutors in Colombia and Europe.
46.
Alex Saab said the court had not heard valid arguments to support the claim that disclosure of the documents would endanger Saab's family in Venezuela, after nearly a year.
47.
Camilla Fabri, Alex Saab's wife, rejected on Twitter that cooperation took place, declared that the US was "brazenly lying, like it did with Russia and Iraq" and that her husband "would never harm Venezuela".
48.
On 7 November, prosecutors presented documents casting doubt on defense evidence to argue that Alex Saab, showing a printed copy of the Official Gazette of Venezuela edition No 6,373 from 26 April 2018 obtained from the United States Library of Congress that contradicted an electronic version introduced by the defense reportedly showing that by presidential decree Alex Saab had been appointed special envoy.
49.
The prosecution argued that the documents suggested potential forgery, and that if Alex Saab was indeed a special envoy, the Maduro administration would have immediately referred to Alex Saab as such, which did not happen until months later, along with the existence of a supposed diplomatic passport.
50.
In December 2023, Alex Saab was released from jail to be sent back to Venezuela in exchange for ten American prisoners being held in Venezuela in a prisoner exchange.