MIAMI — The Justice Department is going after Nicolás Maduro's close friend again, less than three years after President Joe Biden pardoned him. This inquiry could help the U.S. case against the former Venezuelan leader.
A pair of former law enforcement officials who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity said that federal prosecutors had been looking into Alex Saab's role in a supposed bribery scheme involving Venezuelan government contracts to import food for months.
Saab, who is 54 years old, made a lot of money by getting contracts from the Venezuelan government. But the Colombian-born billionaire, who U.S. officials have called Maduro's "bag man" for a long time, lost favor with the new leaders of the country when the U.S. removed the Venezuelan president last month.
Saab's luck has changed with the revived investigation. He got away with a previous U.S. prosecution for a different bribery scheme after Biden pardoned him as part of a prisoner swap for five Americans who were detained in Venezuela.
His location was still unclear on Tuesday, days after contradicting news reports said that Venezuelan officials had detained him or brought him in for questioning, at least temporarily, at the request of the Trump administration.
Officials in the U.S. and the government of acting President Delcy Rodriguez have not said anything. Luigi Giuliano, an Italian lawyer, said he visited Saab last week in Caracas, Venezuela, and denied being held, but he wouldn't say anything else. Neil Schuster, Saab's lawyer in the U.S., similarly didn't say anything.
Rodríguez has downgraded Saab since taking over from Maduro on January 3. She fired him from her cabinet and took away his job as the principal point of contact for international corporations who want to invest in Venezuela.
Biden pardons Saab over objections by law enforcement
Biden agreed to let Saab go in 2023, even though law enforcement didn't want him to. In exchange, Venezuela agreed to send back a fugitive foreign defense contractor known as "Fat Leonard" and liberate several Americans who were already in jail. The Biden White House made the pact as part of an effort to get Maduro to hold a free and fair presidential election and lift some of the sanctions.
Frank Bowman, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law and author of a book on pardons, says that it is rare for someone who has already been awarded mercy to face new charges. This is only possible for crimes that were not covered by the pardon.
Saab's pardon was just for a 2019 indictment, which is mentioned in the pardon itself. It was about a contract he and Pulido allegedly secured by bribing people to build low-income housing units in Venezuela that were never built.
Bowman said that Saab's pardon came with a variety of conditions, such as that he stay out of the United States and not commit any more crimes against it. He answered, "This is a voidable pardon."
Insider connections fuel Saab’s rise
In Venezuela's corrupt patronage system, where loyalty and contacts are very important, few insiders did as well as Saab. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration first heard about him more than ten years ago, when he got a lot of contracts with Maduro's socialist government.
A governor who supported Maduro is said to have contracted a company owned by Pulido to bring in 10 million food cartons from Mexico at a cost of $34 per box in 2016. He is said to have done this knowing that the real cost of buying and transporting the boxes to Venezuela was much lower and that he would get kickbacks. Saab is named in the indictment as "Co-Conspirator 1," and he is said to have signed off on the agreement and helped build up a network of firms to mask the bribe payments.
The Venezuelan government said that Saab's private jet stopped in Cape Verde to refuel on its way to Iran on a humanitarian mission to get around U.S. sanctions. He was detained in 2020.
Maduro termed Saab's return in 2023 a "triumph for truth" against what he described a U.S.-led campaign of lies, threats, and torture against someone he thought was a Venezuelan official. But several Republicans, like Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, were against the settlement. He issued a letter to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland arguing that history should remember Saab as a predator of weak people.
People asked the White House for comments on the federal probe of Saab, but they didn't get back to them. There was no comment from the FBI or the Justice Department.
Witness against Maduro?
Former law enforcement sources stated that if Saab were to be returned to U.S. custody, he could be a crucial witness against Maduro. Before his first arrest, Saab spoke with the DEA in secret. In a closed-door court session in 2022, his lawyers said that for years, the billionaire helped the DEA figure out corruption in Maduro's closest circle. As part of that cooperation, he gave up more than $12 million in unlawful profits from shady business deals.
David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Miami, suggested that Saab could be a good character witness against Maduro even though he has not been charged with drug trafficking like the former Venezuelan leader.
Weinstein stated, "The indictment against Maduro had a lot of scandalous claims, but there wasn't much evidence to back them up." "Saab can tell jurors about a range of crimes that are said to have happened in Maduro's government if the reports about his own criminal activity and closeness to Maduro are true."
Saab is also linked to Rodríguez, who the Trump administration wants to take over for Maduro. Last month, the AP said that the DEA had looked into Rodríguez's role in Saab's government contracts. The U.S. government has never publicly said that Rodríguez did anything wrong.
This piece is part of an investigation that will include the PBS documentary "Crisis in Venezuela," which will air for the first time on February 10, 2026. You may watch the documentary on PBS stations, the PBS app, and FRONTLINE's YouTube account.
