Alex Saab,
who is close to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro government, will face US courts on
money laundering charges after he was extradited to the country from Cape Verde,
reports in the US said.

Saab was on
a chartered Justice Department flight from Cape Verde, where he was arrested 16
months ago while making a stop on the way to Iran for what the Maduro government
later said was a diplomatic humanitarian mission, the Associated Press reported.

Several
media outlets in Cape Verde also reported his extradition, citing unnamed
sources. According to Saab’s PR team, the Colombian businessman was taken from
his home without his lawyers being notified.

American
authorities have been targeting Saab for years, believing he holds numerous
secrets about how Maduro, the president’s family, and his top aides siphoned off
millions of dollars in government contracts for food and housing amid
widespread hunger in oil-rich Venezuela.

Federal
prosecutors in Miami indicted Saab in 2019 on money-laundering charges
connected to an alleged bribery scheme that pocketed more than $350 million
from a low-income housing project for the Venezuelan government.

Separately,
Saab had been sanctioned by the previous Donald Trump administration for allegedly
utilizing a network of shell companies spanning the globe — in the United Arab
Emirates, Turkey, Hong Kong, Panama, Colombia, and Mexico — to hide huge profits
from no-bid, overvalued food contracts obtained through bribes and kickbacks.

But while
in private US officials have long described Saab as a front man for Maduro, he
is not identified as such in court filings.

His
defenders, including Russia and Cuba apart from the government in Venezuela, say
that his arrest was illegal. They maintain that Saab was a diplomatic envoy of
the Venezuelan government and as such possesses immunity from prosecution while
on official business.

Venezuela’s
government criticised the “kidnapping” of Saab by the US government
“in complicity with authorities in Cape Verde,” according to a
statement quoted by the Associated Press.

Saab’s
arrival to the US is bound to complicate relations between Washington and
Caracas, possibly disrupting fledgling talks between Maduro’s government and
its US-backed opposition taking place in Mexico.

Joe Biden
administration has said that he can defend himself in US courts and that his
case shouldn’t affect ongoing negotiations sponsored by Norway aimed at
overcoming Venezuela’s long running economic crisis and political tug of war.