Alex Saab, a close ally of deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, is scheduled to enter a guilty plea on Tuesday in a court prosecution alleging that he bribed officials to secure lucrative contracts to import food during a period of widespread hardship in the South American nation.
Deported in May by Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez in response to pressure from the US, which has been targeting the Colombian-born businessman for more than a decade, Saab is charged with a single count of money laundering tied to an alleged conspiracy to create fake companies, falsify shipping records and skim from government contracts to import food from Colombia and Mexico.
