OAN Staff Addie Davis
3:10 PM – Tuesday, May 19, 2026
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has unsealed an indictment against Alex Saab, an ally of the regime of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
According to a DOJ press release, Saab, 55, the former Venezuelan minister of industry and national production, made his first appearance in court on Monday for an indictment in the Southern District of Florida — charging him with money laundering in relation to a public welfare program.
“This indictment alleges that a humanitarian food program intended to support vulnerable Venezuelans was instead manipulated for massive personal enrichment,” said United States Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida.
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From 2015 until 2026, the indictment alleges that Saab participated in a scheme that corrupted the Venezuelan public welfare program, known as Comité Local de Abastecimiento y Producción (CLAP), to enrich himself and associates.
The names of the other alleged conspirators were redacted in the provided indictment.
According to the court documents, Saab and his conspirators allegedly bribed officials in order to be awarded CLAP contracts to import food under false pretenses, including from Colombia and Mexico.
“Rather than deliver in full on the contracts, the conspirators used fake companies, false invoices, false shipping records, other fraudulent documents, and bribes and kickbacks to skim hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves that were supposed to be used for the purchase of food for needy Venezuelans,” the indictment read.
It further alleges that some of the illegal proceeds “were spent or concealed from authorities through transfers of the illicit funds to and through bank accounts in the United States.”
Following increased sanctions from the U.S. on the South American country, the defendants are accused of using their influence with Venezuelan government officials to sell billions of dollars of oil owned by the state company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., under false pretenses from 2019 to 2026.
The document also notes that illegal sales were transferred to U.S. banks in support of the CLAP scheme.
“DEA [Drug Enforcement Agency] has long investigated the alleged financial crimes and networks tied to Alex Saab and the former Maduro regime,” said DEA Administrator Terrance Cole.
If convicted of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, Saab faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. He was previously extradited to the U.S. from Cape Verde in 2021 after facing money laundering charges. However, before his case went to trial, President Joe Biden pardoned him in December 2023 as part of a high-profile prisoner swap with Maduro’s government, resulting in his release and return to Venezuela.
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