Colombian businessman Álvaro Pulido arrested by US on charges of $1.6 billion bribery scheme in Venezuela
Colombian businessman Álvaro Pulido, associate of Alex Saab, was arrested following years of manhunt on suspicion of bribing Venezuelan officials and money laundering.
Colombian businessman Álvaro Pulido captured by US in Venezuelan corruption case
Álvaro Pulido Vargas, Colombian businessman sought by American justice for years, was detained on Sunday 11 October, US authorities reported. According to france24.com, Pulido faces accusations of having paid bribes to senior Venezuelan officials in exchange for lucrative state contracts.
The detention resulted from a joint investigation led by the DEA, FBI and National Security Investigations agencies, according to Nicole Navas Oxman, spokesperson for the National Security Task Force. Oxman confirmed that Pulido will make his first appearance before a federal court in Miami on Tuesday 13 October, though she did not specify details of how he came into US custody.
Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, citing federal sources, reported that the DEA transferred Pulido to Florida from a Caracas prison, where he had been held since 2023.
Federal court accusations since 2019
Pulido was charged for the first time in a federal court in Miami in 2019, alongside his lifelong business partner, Alex Saab, a former ally of deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. In that case, both face charges for laundering approximately 350 million dollars linked to an alleged housing contract scheme and Venezuela's foreign exchange control system.
In 2021, Pulido was charged again, this time with laundering profits derived from public contracts for food and medicines obtained through bribery and at inflated prices. According to prosecutors, he and his accomplices received approximately 1.6 billion dollars from the Venezuelan Government through this scheme.
Prosecutors allege that Pulido and Saab built a network of offshore shell companies to channel bribes to Maduro's main allies. These payments would have allowed them to obtain contracts to import food, medicines and low-cost housing during a period when Venezuela was undergoing a severe crisis.
The DEA and State Department had offered a reward of up to 10 million dollars for information leading to Pulido's capture.
Prosecutor general's reaction and Caracas's silence
"His alleged actions demonstrate a flagrant disregard for the Venezuelan people by corrupting government programmes designed to provide food, medicines and critical housing for personal enrichment and exploiting the US financial system to do so," wrote Attorney General Todd Blanche on social media Sunday.
Blanche added that "no amount of time or distance will prevent" the Department of Justice from "working with our federal security forces and international partners to pursue these criminals and bring them to justice in an American courtroom".
Venezuelan authorities have not commented on the arrest. Acting president Delcy Rodríguez faces internal pressure within the ruling coalition demanding resistance to actions by Donald Trump's administration. There is no record of Venezuelan courts having processed a formal extradition request, which is the procedure established by national legislation for claims from third countries.
Connection with Alex Saab and the cooperation agreement
Pulido was arrested in Venezuela in 2023 as part of an anti-corruption offensive within state oil company PDVSA, an operation led by Rodríguez when she was vice president under Maduro.
His name appears explicitly in the cooperation agreement signed between the US Prosecutor's Office and Alex Saab. The latter, also born in Colombia and identified as an alleged frontman for Maduro, was deported to the United States by Rodríguez in May. Last month, Saab pleaded guilty in a related bribery case, agreed to cooperate against Maduro and others, and consented to surrender 195 million dollars in proceeds obtained from the corruption scheme.
Washington maintains active arrest warrants against dozens of Venezuelans sought for crimes ranging from corruption to drug trafficking.
Source: Google News VE — Crime