The Colombian businessman faces two federal cases involving alleged bribery and money laundering schemes linked to food, medicine, and housing contracts in Venezuela.
The Daily Journal.- U.S. authorities arrested Álvaro Pulido Vargas, a business partner of Alex Saab, who faces two federal indictments for allegedly laundering money from bribery schemes involving more than $2 billion in Venezuelan government contracts, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Sunday.
U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the arrest in a post on X, saying Pulido’s alleged activities involved diverting resources from public programs meant to provide food, medicine, and housing, and using the U.S. financial system to conceal illicit funds.
In its statement on Pulido’s arrest, the Department of Justice said the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the FBI, and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) conducted the investigations in coordination with other agencies.
Venezuelan authorities had arrested Pulido, 62, in 2023 during an investigation into alleged corruption at the state-owned oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). The mechanism through which he arrived in the United States remains unclear.
Federal prosecutors indicted the Colombian businessman in 2019 and 2021 in two separate cases before federal courts in Florida. According to the Department of Justice, Pulido will make his first court appearance on Tuesday, October 13, in the Southern District of Florida.
The first case, which prosecutors filed in July 2019, also involves Saab and concerns an alleged $350 million money laundering scheme linked to social housing construction contracts and Venezuela’s foreign exchange control system.
According to the indictment, both businessmen allegedly used fraudulent import documents to justify transactions involving goods and materials that never entered Venezuela. They also allegedly bribed Venezuelan officials to secure approval of those documents. Some of the funds allegedly passed through U.S. bank accounts before reaching offshore accounts.
The second case, which prosecutors filed in 2021, focuses on contracts under the government’s Local Committees for Supply and Production (CLAP) program, which authorities established to distribute food and medicine to Venezuelans.
U.S. prosecutors allege that Pulido and four co-defendants secured government contracts through bribes and inflated product prices to finance those payments and increase their profits. According to the indictment, the scheme allegedly generated approximately $1.6 billion in payments from the Venezuelan government, including about $180 million that passed through the United States or reached accounts in the country.
The Alex Saab case
Pulido’s arrest comes weeks after Saab pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in another U.S. federal case involving bribery and government contracts for food and medicine in Venezuela.
The Colombian businessman, who served as Minister of Industry under Nicolás Maduro’s government, admitted his involvement in a scheme that involved making illegal payments to officials to secure CLAP contracts. As part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, he agreed to surrender $195 million in illicit proceeds and cooperate with ongoing federal investigations.
Authorities extradited Saab from Cape Verde to the United States in 2021. However, then-U.S. President Joe Biden pardoned him in December 2023 as part of a prisoner exchange. In May 2026, Venezuelan authorities sent him back to the United States, according to reports in U.S. media.
