BSS :
A fugitive businessman accused of acting as a money launderer for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime was extradited Saturday to the United States from Cape Verde, his legal team told AFP.
Manuel Pinto Monteiro, a lawyer for Saab in Cape Verde, said “we were informed that Alex Saab was put on a US Justice Department plane and sent to that country.”
Pinto Monteiro insisted the extradition was illegal because, he said, the legal process surrounding it in Cape Verde had not run its full course.
Venezuela reacted angrily to the extradition, suspending talks with the US- backed opposition in Mexico City. It had hoped to make Saab part of the government delegation to that dialogue on ending the country’s political and economic crisis.
Saab and his business partner Alvaro Pulido are charged in the United States with running a network that exploited food aid destined for Venezuela, an oil rich nation mired in an acute economic crisis.
They are alleged to have moved some $350 million out of Venezuela into accounts they controlled in the United States and other countries. They risk up to 20 years in prison.
Saab, who also has Venezuelan nationality and a Venezuelan diplomatic passport, was indicted in July 2019 in Miami for money laundering, and was arrested during a plane stopover in Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa in June 2020.
Venezuela’s opposition has described the Colombian national as a front man doing shady dealings for the populist socialist regime of Maduro. The US Department of Justice did not immediately respond to an AFP query seeking confirmation of the extradition of Saab. Colombian President Ivan Duque said he had in fact been extradited.
“The extradition of Alex Saab is a triumph in the fight against the drug trafficking, asset laundering and corruption that the dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro has fostered,” Duque tweeted.
“Colombia has supported and will continue to support the United States in the investigation of the transnational crime network led by Saab.” Cape Verde agreed last month to extradite Saab to the US, despite protests from Venezuela. Venezuela said Saturday that Saab, whom it called its “ambassador,” had been abducted by the United States.
“Venezuela denounces the kidnapping of the Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab by the government of the United States in complicity with the authorities in Cape Verde,” the Caracas government said in a statement.
