Venezuelan diplomat accused of corruption was US ‘law enforcement source’
February 18, 2022 Leave a comment
A WEALTHY BUSINESSMAN AND close ally of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is being tried in the United States on money-laundering charges, was a “law enforcement source” for the Drug Enforcement Administration, according to documents unsealed this week in a Florida court. The businessman, Alex Nain Saab Moran, 51, comes from a Colombian family of Lebanese descent. For the past decade, he has been one of a number of international investors who have done extensive business with the government of Venezuela.
Saab’s loyalty to the Venezuelan government was rewarded with numerous state contracts by the government of President Maduro. Maduro eventually appointed Saab deputy ambassador of Venezuela to the African Union. Critics claimed that Saab’s diplomatic appointment was meant to shield him from warrants for his arrest for money-laundering, which had been issued by numerous countries. The United States, in particular, accused Saab of helping to organize a sophisticated network of shell companies, in order to launder money on behalf of the Venezuelan government.
In June of 2020, as his private airplane was refueling at the island nation of Cape Verde, Saab was arrested by the local police, pursuant to an Interpol “red notice”, which identified him as an individual wanted by the United States government. Saab was on his way back to Venezuela from Iran, where he had traveled as a Venezuelan diplomat. For several months following Saab’s arrest, a team of Venezuelan government lawyers attempted to prevent his extradition to the United States. They failed, however, and the businessman was extradited on October 16, 2021. Read more of this post
LAWYERS FOR A FORMER Venezuelan military officer, who tried to topple President Nicolás Maduro in 2020 with the help of American former soldiers, have claimed that senior officials in the United States Central Intelligence Agency were aware of his activities “at the highest levels”. The court case centers on Major General Clíver Alcalá Cordones, a retired member of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Army, who is being tried in a Manhattan court. Alcalá is accused of being a member of a drug smuggling ring that worked closely with Colombian terrorist organizations to smuggle over 250 metric tons of cocaine to the US.
THE FORMER DIRECTOR OF Venezuela’s military spy agency has been captured in Madrid after two years on the run, and is now likely to be extradited to the United States, where he will face drug trafficking charges. Hugo Carvajal is a retired general and former diplomat, who was a member of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s inner circle. From 2004 to 2011, under Chávez’s tutelage, Carvajal headed Venezuela’s Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM).
VENEZUELAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES SPIED on executives of the Citgo Petroleum Corporation in the United States for at least a year, according to court testimony by a Venezuelan former counterintelligence official. The espionage targeted six executives of Citgo, a Texas-headquartered oil company owned by the Venezuelan government. The executives have been named as Gustavo Cardenas, Jose Luis Zambrano, Jose Pereira, Alirio Jose Zambrano, Tomeu Vadell and Jorge Toledo. Five of them are reportedly American citizens.
The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, announced on Friday the arrest of an alleged “American spy”, who was reportedly arrested near the largest oil refinery complex in the country. The alleged spy, who has not been named, was reportedly in the vicinity of the Paraguaná Refinery Complex, which is known as the third largest refinery complex in the world. It combines the Amuay, Bajo Grande and Cardón refineries, which together produce nearly a third of Venezuela’s daily oil output.
Venezuelan state television aired on Wednesday an interview with one of two Americans facing charges of having participated in a failed armed plot to overthrow the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuelan media have been referring to the failed plot as “enfrentamiento en El Junquito” (“El Junquito raid”), or “Operación GEDEÓN”.
The former director of Venezuela’s military spy agency, who is wanted in the United States for drug trafficking, reportedly disappeared in Spain as authorities there were attempting to extradite him to Washington. Hugo Carvajal is a retired general and former diplomat, who was a member of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s inner circle. From 2004 to 2011, under Chávez’s tutelage, Carvajal headed the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM).
Colombia’s military spy chief has resigned, after the Colombian president was found to have misused intelligence at a United Nations speech to blame Venezuela for allegedly aiding paramilitary groups. For many years, authorities in Bogotá have accused Venezuela of aiding armed groups such as the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). These groups have been engaged in a decades-long guerrilla war against the Colombian state. In 2017, the largest of these groups, the FARC, laid down its weapons and signed a peace treaty with the Colombian government. But the ELN has refused to follow suit, while a number of hardline FARC leaders recently announced that they would be resuming their armed struggle against the Colombian authorities.
Groups of Venezuelan expatriates are reportedly forming armed militias in Colombia and say they are preparing to launch cross-border attacks to topple the government of President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. It is 
In an effort to persuade senior members of the Venezuelan government to defect, the United States has lifted punitive financial sanctions on the country’s intelligence director, who left his post on April 30. General Christopher Figuera became director of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (SEBIN) in October 2018. SEBIN is Venezuela’s primary intelligence agency and has a dual domestic and international role. Much of its domestic mission is to protect and defend the Bolivarian Revolution, which forms the ideological framework of the government headed by President Nicolás Maduro. It follows that SEBIN’s employees are all trusted supporters of Venezuela’s embattled President.
The embattled President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, has reportedly fired his intelligence director, as news emerged early on Thursday that members of his inner circle were considering removing him from power. These reports circulated shortly after Juan Guaidó, President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, openly called on the country’s Armed Forces to remove Maduro from power. Guaidó has been recognized by over 50 countries —including the United States and much of the European Union— as the legitimate president of Venezuela. But Maduro continues to be supported by a number of powerful allies, including China and Russia, which 
Russian media reports have confirmed that an airplane carrying 100 Russian troops arrived in Caracas on Saturday, causing tensions to rise between Washington and Moscow over the deepening crisis in Venezuela. The arrival of the Russian troops in the Venezuelan capital was first reported on Saturday morning by Venezuelan reporter Javier Mayorca, who said on Twitter that two Russian military airplanes had landed in Caracas. The reporter said that an Antonov An-124 Ruslan cargo plane belonging to the Russian Air Force could be seen on the tarmac of the Simón Bolívar International Airport in the Venezuelan capital. Another, smaller aircraft, also bearing the Russian flag on its fuselage, landed shortly afterwards, said Mayorca.
The United States said on Tuesday that it will evacuate its last few diplomats from its embassy in Caracas, as the electricity blackout in Venezuela enters its sixth day, making it the longest energy crisis in the nation’s history. Energy shortages are not new in Venezuela. The oil-rich Latin American country of 31 million people suffered two disastrous nationwide blackouts in 2009 and a third one in 2016. But the current blackout is quickly approaching the one-week mark and is believed to have caused a minimum of 20 deaths, mostly in hospitals around the country. The majority of the population currently lacks access to fuel and banking services, while there are 
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