2024-01-20 07:55:26
Álex Saab fell dead in Caracas. His release, carried out by the United States Government, gave Nicolás Maduro the greatest trophy in re-election times. With Saab at “home”, as the Chavista Government says over and over again, the Venezuelan president had two triumphs: achieving a victory on his own court against the alleged abuse of power by the White House and, in turn, preventing many of The truths about the shady management of the enormous coffers of the corrupt regime will be exposed in the justice system of that country.
“I announce the appointment of Álex Saab Morán as the new president of the Productive Investment Center of Venezuela. May his experience help our country bring investments and economic strength to the world,” Maduro said euphorically amidst enormous applause. “He has the experience to attract investment. Álex, I trust you completely,” he told him, looking him in the eyes.
The position, unknown in Colombia, is enormously coveted in Venezuela. A suprapower in a regime in which money and business must go through nooks and crannies, given Venezuela’s sanctions on the planet.
Álex Saab with Nicolás Maduro. | Photo: 2023 Anadolu
The entity is explained in the commercial blockades that the country is experiencing and its main objective is to avoid them. “It is created as the Institute in charge of the registration, study and monitoring of Unilateral Coercive Measures and other restrictive or punitive measures; as well as the evaluation, approval and promotion of productive projects and the management of the Country Brand, as a strategy aimed at promoting investments and foreign trade,” says the Venezuelan Government.
The power is enormous. The entity is the one that reviews and approves the country’s investment projects. And it is in charge of finding and consenting to business partners who want to do business with Venezuela despite the red flags that the West has placed on that nation. With this reality, Saab will end up being the ambassador to speak with Maduro’s money to the most questioned and dangerous authoritarian regimes in the world, which are, in the end, those who want to do business there, including Iran and Russia.
Behind the entity there has always been one of the most enigmatic and powerful characters of the Maduro regime, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez. In this organization, the Government has the spearhead of its most key strategy in 2024: seven objectives “to accelerate the transformation process that Venezuela requires with a view to becoming a power country,” as Nicolás Maduro explained.
Businessman Álex Saab with Nicolás Maduro. | Photo: 2024 Anadolu
The day he appointed Saab, the Venezuelan leader presented this plan and blamed the economic debacle on the sanctions that the Colombian will have to avoid. “The total losses of the national economy, both in the public and private sectors, in terms of the fall in GDP between 2015 and 2022 were 642 billion dollars, a genocide, an economic massacre,” he recalled.
Putting Saab, the man who has the largest series of businesses in Venezuela in his history and whom many reports have accused of having looted its coffers, carries great irony. “Given the uncertain outcome of the two wars it is facing, the Biden administration chose to release Álex Saab, whose extradition was a long chapter full of incidents.
Maduro gave him the pompous position of president of the Productive Investment Center of Venezuela, the least suitable for such a character: it is like putting Ali Baba as treasurer of the Kingdom. However, it is the pledge to mitigate the sanctions against Venezuela and ensure his next reelection,” explains Julio Londoño Paredes, former chancellor and dean of International Relations at the Universidad del Rosario.
Álex Saab was detained in the US | Photo: AFP or licensors
“I’m conquering my daughter, the youngest, who doesn’t know me. I am happy to be in Venezuela and continue helping the country. Grateful with God, with life and with you, who did not get tired. It was easy to get tired,” she added. He stressed that the right usually abandons its officials in trouble, but that he knew that the Maduro Government was loyal and he just had to “resist and be patient”, because due to “impatience we lost paradise.” Saab did not spare his praise for Maduro and told him that he was an “example for the world.”
Saab’s heroic arrival in Caracas also contrasts with the criminal record he has in Colombia. It is known that here he would probably be captured once he sets foot on the territory. SEMANA accessed a series of documents that show the enormous debts that he has with the country. According to a document from the Presidential Commissioner against Organized Crime, “through a sophisticated network of shell companies, business associates and family members, Saab has laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in corruption around the world.”
Álex Saab was Nicolás Maduro’s front man.
“Saab began his career in Barranquilla selling business promotional keychains and later work uniforms. In 2010 she met Álvaro Pulido Vargas (whose real name is Germán Enrique Rubio Salas), nephew of the Colombian senator Piedad Córdoba, very close to Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. This connection allowed him to start her business in Venezuela,” the text adds.
The excessive increase in Saab’s fortune put him under scrutiny and therefore he has several open processes. In Colombia, the Barranquillero responds to different charges. Justice is investigating him for homogeneous and successive competition for money laundering, mainly. Also for conspiracy to commit a crime and illicit enrichment of individuals, fictitious export or import, and aggravated fraud. Despite everything that has been said about Saab in Colombia, the United States and Venezuela, this week Maduro confirmed that when it comes to money there is no one he trusts more than him.
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