Colombian businessman Alex Saab, alleged figurehead of Venezuela’s dictator Nicolás Maduro, reportedly met with US authorities before his arrest, in 2020, to provide information about the Chavez government.
The information is contained in a document, to which Reuters and Associated Press agencies had access, presented to a federal court in Manhattan this week by the lawyers of Bruce Bagley, a former professor at the University of Miami.
A specialist in drug trafficking studies in Latin America, Bagley was arrested in November 2019 on charges of money laundering – according to prosecutors, he received nearly $3 million in deposits from overseas accounts that were controlled by Saab and kept a commission. The professor pleaded guilty last year and will have his sentence announced next week.
In the document presented this week with the aim of seeking a lenient sentence, Bagley’s defense pointed out that the money he received was directed towards paying lawyers “who were advising Saab and accompanying him in meetings with the US government, during which Saab provided information on Maduro’s government,” Reuters pointed out. The meetings began in 2017, according to the document, but what was discussed at these meetings was not informed.
According to the Associated Press, prosecutors reported that Saab initially approached Bruce Bagley for help in obtaining a student visa for his son and then asked him for advice on investing in Guatemala.
As of November 2017, Bagley began receiving monthly deposits of approximately US$200,000 from an alleged UAE-based food company; funds were also transferred from an account in Switzerland.
Bagley then transferred 90% of the money to accounts controlled by an informant for payment to Saab lawyers in the United States, he was told. However, the professor set aside a 10% commission for himself and continued to accept money even after one of his accounts was closed due to suspicious activity.
Saab’s defense alleged in a statement that Bagley never worked for the businessman and that he never cooperated with US authorities against the “interests” of the Venezuelan government.
For Maduro, extradition of Saab was “kidnapping”
Alex Saab was detained in Cape Verde in June 2020 when his plane stopped to refuel at Amilcar Cabral International Airport on Sal Island. He was extradited to the United States last month on money laundering charges.
Saab, born in the Colombian city of Barranquilla and of Lebanese origin, is linked to several companies, including the Group Grand Limited (GGL), accused of supplying food and products at inflated prices to the Nicolás Maduro regime. Maduro’s businessman and three stepchildren have profited “hundreds of millions of dollars” from these operations, according to US officials.
Shortly after his extradition, Saab stated that he would not collaborate with the American justice, according to a letter read by his wife, Camila Fabri, during one of the acts organized by the Chavez regime in support of the businessman in Caracas.
Maduro said at the time that the businessman was “kidnapped by the North American empire”. “I trust Alex Saab in the hands of God. There will be justice, because there will be truth”, said the dictator on state television.
Maduro also claimed that Saab’s extradition was “one of the most ignoble and vulgar injustices committed in recent decades in the world” and that Venezuela would bring the UN and human rights bodies against what it called “kidnapping”.
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