Biden pardoned Alex Saab again targeted by U.S. criminal probe

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Less than three years after President Joe Biden pardoned Alex Saab, the Justice Department is once again targeting the businessman in a criminal investigation that could support U.S. prosecution of Venezuela’s deposed leader, The Associated Press reported. The probe is focused on Saab’s alleged involvement in a bribery conspiracy connected to Venezuelan government contracts for imports of food staples, AP reported, citing two former law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity about the ongoing work.

AP said the investigation comes after federal prosecutors for months have been digging into Saab’s role in what the officials described as bribery surrounding contracts for importing food through government channels. The renewed attention on Saab comes amid the Trump administration’s efforts to stabilize relations with Venezuela, AP said.

The Justice Department’s renewed scrutiny is tied to an earlier prosecution involving Saab’s longtime partner, Alvaro Pulido, according to the same two former law enforcement officials. That 2021 case was brought in Miami and centered on allegations connected to Maduro’s CLAP program, which was set up to provide staples such as rice, corn flour and cooking oil to poorer Venezuelans amid hyperinflation and a collapsing currency, AP reported.

Saab, 54, has amassed wealth through Venezuelan government contracts, AP said, and U.S. officials have long described him as Maduro’s “bag man.” But AP reported that Saab has fallen out of favor in Venezuela’s new leadership following the U.S. ouster of Venezuela’s president last month, with Acting President Delcy Rodríguez demoting him after taking over on Jan. 3. AP said Rodríguez fired Saab from her cabinet and stripped him of what had been his role as the main conduit for foreign companies looking to invest in Venezuela.

AP reported that Saab’s whereabouts were not clear Tuesday, after conflicting reports suggested he was detained or brought in for questioning—at least temporarily—by Venezuelan officials at the request of the Trump administration. Neither U.S. officials nor Rodríguez’s government commented, AP said. Luigi Giuliano, an Italian attorney who AP said met Saab in the Venezuelan capital, denied that Saab was detained, and Saab’s U.S. attorney, Neil Schuster, declined comment, AP reported.

The renewed investigation also marks a reversal for Saab compared with his earlier U.S. legal outcome. AP said Saab escaped an earlier U.S. prosecution for an unrelated bribery scheme after Biden pardoned him in 2023 as part of a prisoner swap that included freeing several Americans jailed in Venezuela and Venezuela’s return of a fugitive foreign defense contractor known as “Fat Leonard.” Frank Bowman, a law professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law who writes a book on pardons, told AP that fresh charges against individuals previously granted clemency are rare and generally can be pursued only for crimes committed outside the defined scope of the pardon. Bowman also said the pardon was “voidable,” according to AP.

AP reported that Saab’s pardon was narrowly tailored to a 2019 indictment tied to allegations that he and Pulido allegedly won a contract through bribes to build low-income housing units in Venezuela that were never built. Bowman said the pardon came with conditions, including that Saab remain outside the United States and not commit further crimes against the country, AP reported.

According to AP, Saab’s rise in Venezuela depended on relationships inside the patronage system associated with Maduro. AP said that U.S. scrutiny began more than a decade ago when Saab came onto the radar of the Drug Enforcement Administration after accumulating a large number of contracts with Maduro’s socialist administration. In 2016, AP reported that a pro-Maduro governor allegedly hired a company controlled by Pulido to import 10 million food boxes at $34 per box, and that U.S. officials alleged the kickbacks reflected a lower real cost to purchase and send the boxes to Venezuela. AP said Saab was identified in the indictment as “Co-Conspirator 1.”

AP also reported that Saab was arrested in 2020 after his private jet made a refueling stop in Cape Verde en route to Iran on what the Venezuelan government described as a humanitarian mission to circumvent U.S. sanctions. Maduro celebrated Saab’s return in 2023 as a “triumph for truth” over what AP reported as a U.S.-led campaign of lies, threats and torture, AP said, while several Republicans criticized the pardon, including Sen. Chuck Grassley, who AP reported sent a letter to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland arguing history “should remember (Saab) as a predator of vulnerable people.”

Saab’s potential value to prosecutors is also part of the backdrop for the renewed inquiry, AP reported. The former law enforcement officials said that if Saab were returned to U.S. custody, he could become a valuable witness against Maduro. They said Saab secretly met with the DEA before his first arrest and that his lawyers revealed at a closed-door court hearing in 2022 that, for years, he helped untangle corruption in Maduro’s inner circle, AP reported.

A former federal prosecutor in Miami, David Weinstein, told AP that Saab could be a valuable character witness even if he has not been charged with drug trafficking like Maduro. Weinstein said: “The indictment against Maduro contained a lot of salacious allegations, but there was little in the way of corroboration.” He added that Saab, if the reports about his own criminal activity and closeness to Maduro are true, “can describe for jurors a range of criminal activity that is alleged to have taken place across Maduro’s government,” according to AP.

AP reported that Saab also has ties to Rodríguez, describing her as the Trump administration’s preferred partner to succeed Maduro. AP said it previously reported that the DEA examined Rodríguez’s involvement in government contracts awarded to Saab, and that the U.S. government has not publicly accused Rodríguez of criminal wrongdoing.