• Venezuela: green light for the extradition of Alex Saab to the United States
  • Figurehead: Alex Saab, the elusive Colombian businessman at the service of Nicolás Maduro

Heading to Venezuela, with a stopover in the Caribbean island of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Last Saturday, US authorities seized a Venezuelan Bombardier Learjet plane, registration YV 3441, at Fort Lauderdale International Airport, Florida. Customs agents were warned of the "suspicious movements" around the aircraft , prompting their intervention.

Once inside the device, they were met with quite a surprise. A small arsenal was deployed from the cockpit to the bottom of the aircraft: 82 weapons, including a Barret 50 caliber sniper rifle and 63,000 rounds , plus $ 23,000. All the clues lead, according to the complaint made by the Presidency in charge of Venezuela, to the Colombian millionaire Alex Saab, front man of Nicolás Maduro who fights in Cape Verde, defended by former judge Baltasar Garzón , to prevent his extradition to the United States.

The authorities immediately detained the Venezuelan pilots Luis Alberto Patino and Gregori Méndez , on charges of illegal possession of firearms and smuggling of cash. One of them confessed to the authorities that the final destination of the trip was Caracas , despite the fact that San Vicente was listed on the road map. Both, managers of a suspicious company created in recent weeks, are in the custody of the US Marshals Corps.

The Bombardier made constant trips to Latin America, according to the aeronautical records found by the local press: Bahamas, Bogotá or Santo Domingo, in addition to Caracas.

"The intercepted plane belongs to a Roswell Rosales company, pilot of Álvaro Pulido Vargas , partner of Maduro's front man, Alex Saab. The world is getting small for them, their criminal structure is naked," denounced Carlos Paparoni , commissioner of the Presidency in charge Against Corruption and Money Laundering, who added that Saab's partners regularly used the aircraft.

Pulido is Saab's alter ego, implicated up to the eyebrows in the same operations as his partner, also sanctioned and persecuted both in his country, Colombia, and by the United States.

The pilots confessed that they had purchased the weapons (18 assault rifles, 58 semiautomatic pistols, six shotguns, a silencer and armored armor, in addition to the sniper rifle and ammunition) in Florida retail stores and through electronic commerce.

The seizure of the plane linked to Saab coincides with the complaint made by US Senator Marco Rubio , which has echoed the contacts made in Caracas between the Bolivarian government and two people who arrived from Africa. "Despite the corrupt efforts of some people, the Government of Cape Verde ignored the threats and rejected the attempted bribery of the Maduro regime in the US extradition request for Álex Saab, the man who leads the regime's money laundering. "He highlighted today on his social networks.

The bad news is thus piling up around Saab, despite the initiatives of Garzón and the rest of his team of lawyers. In the last hours it has been known that the Government of Bulgaria has blocked 158 million dollars from Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) and from companies related to the Barranquilla businessman, who began by giving away modest key rings in his hometown until his friend Piedad Córdoba , A former leftist senator, she introduced him to the business world of the Chavista leaders. Saab's journey to riches was supersonic.

"We will use all national and international mechanisms to avoid extradition, which the US president is designing on an electoral and, therefore, political basis," Garzón said last week.

The United States Government increased its military presence near Cape Verde due to suspicions that a military operation was being prepared from Caracas to free Saab a key man in the great dirty businesses of the revolution: importation of cheap food at a premium, construction of houses , gold smuggling and oil business. Saab also served as a link with Iran for the import of gasoline.

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