Alex Saab, a former high-ranking government official in Venezuela accused in a U.S. case of enriching himself through lucrative contracts, is expected to plead guilty on Tuesday in Miami.
Court records show that Mr. Saab will appear in federal court in Miami for a change of plea hearing. The court date comes four months after Venezuela extradited Mr. Saab, a longtime ally of the country’s deposed president, Nicolás Maduro, who himself is awaiting trial in New York after being deposed in January.
Mr. Saab was charged in May with one count of money laundering; details of a plea agreement have not been made public. His defense lawyer in Miami declined to comment on Monday, and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Saab’s winding legal saga has been a source of international and diplomatic intrigue for years. United States officials previously accused Mr. Saab, a wealthy businessman born in Colombia, of helping top Venezuelan officials siphon off large sums of money through contracts meant to help the nation’s poor.
Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, detained and extradited him shortly after his most recent indictment, underscoring her increasingly close ties to the Trump administration. Ms. Rodríguez fired Mr. Saab from his post as Venezuela’s industry minister soon after Mr. Maduro was taken by American special forces in January. Ms. Rodríguez had served as the country’s vice president under Mr. Maduro.
As part of a plea agreement, Mr. Saab could potentially cooperate against Mr. Maduro, who is awaiting trial on federal charges of conspiring to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine.
This is Mr. Saab’s second time in U.S. custody.
In 2021, he was extradited to the United States on money laundering charges, serving nearly two years in a federal detention center in Florida before he was pardoned by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Saab was returned to Venezuela as part of a prisoner swap that included 10 Americans.
According to the latest indictment, Mr. Saab is accused of using American banks to launder millions of dollars pilfered from a Venezuelan food program meant to aid the nation’s poor. That program was financed with Venezuelan oil money.
In another twist, Mr. Saab’s former defense lawyer was elected president of Colombia this year. Abelardo De La Espriella, a right-wing leader endorsed by the Trump administration, came under scrutiny years ago by U.S. law enforcement officials over the movement of Mr. Saab’s funds into the American financial system, as revealed in an investigation by The New York Times.
Mr. De La Espriella said he had cut ties with Mr. Saab in 2019, after federal prosecutors first indicted Mr. Saab.
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