Who is Álvaro Pulido, the ally of Álex Saab who was arrested in Venezuela for the corruption plot in PDVSA

The Colombian businessman Álvaro Pulido Vargas, known for being a partner of the prisoner in the United States Alex Saabwas arrested in Venezuela for allegedly being involved in the corruption and embezzlement plot at PDVSA, the largest state-owned company in that country.

The information was confirmed on Tuesday by CNN, who said that the data is based on a police source close to the investigation. With Polished There are 55 people arrested for the plot in PDVSA.

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Among those arrested are a mayor, a former deputy from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), three judges, as well as businessmen and officials from PDVSA and the Corporación Venezolana de Guayana mining company.

CNN indicated that the attorney general, Tarek William Saab, reported Monday that a total of 67 arrest warrants have been issued. He added that up to that moment, 142 raids had been carried out throughout the country.

One of the residences found is precisely that of Alvaro Pulidolocated in the Country Club of Caracas, as confirmed by the WRadio of Colombia.

This great operation launched with the support of the president himself Nicolas Maduro It also led to the resignation on March 20 of the powerful Chavista Tareck El-Aissamiwho served as Minister of Petroleum.

Before the news of the arrest of Alvaro Pulidothe research portal Armando.info revealed that both he and Saab were responsible for the loss of 1.5 billion dollars from transactions related to the sale of Venezuelan oil.

Armando.Info added that the documents obtained by the Venezuelan Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that both Saab as Polished They are among the intermediaries that took the most oil from PDVSA and stopped paying the state company.

“A good part of the uncollected invoices for the years 2019 and 2020 that PDVSA transferred to the State are connected to the companies operated by Saab and Pulido, such as the Mexican Libre Abordo and Schlager Business Group, or the Russian Protón and Delta, among others. ”said Armando.Info.

In October 2021, the United States government offered a $10 million reward for information that could lead to the arrest or conviction of Alvaro Pulido Vargasalso know as German Enrique Rubiowho is charged with “money laundering in connection with a foreign bribery scheme.”

“The Department of State announced a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Alvaro Polished vargasa Colombian citizen linked to the corrupt Maduro regime,” the spokesman for the Secretary of State, Ned Price, tweeted at that time.

Since 2021, the United States offers a reward of 10 million dollars for the capture of Álvaro Pulido Vargas. (EFE/US Department of State). (EFEI0023/)

According to the United States Department of Justice, Polished and two other Colombians and two Venezuelans are indicted by a grand jury for the Southern District of Florida for their alleged participation in a network that laundered money from a program to supply food and medicine to Venezuela.

According to the October 7, 2021 indictment, Polished and their accomplices paid bribes to obtain contracts with Venezuelan government entities to import and distribute boxes of food and medicine in Venezuela through the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP)a state-owned and controlled program, reported the AFP agency.

The defendants allegedly inflated the costs and, between 2015 and 2020, colluded to launder the money obtained.

The five defendants and their collaborators received about $1.6 billion from Venezuelan authorities and transferred about $180 million through or to the United States, according to the indictment.

Polished faces four counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to launder funds in the United States, all associated with alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

AFP recalls that Alvarto Pulido He was also indicted in 2019 by a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida eight counts of money laundering along with Alex Saaba Colombian detained in Cape Verde and later extradited to the United States to answer for those crimes.

According to the 2019 indictment, Saab and Polished won a contract with the Venezuelan government in November 2011 to build low-income housing, and took advantage of Venezuela’s regime-controlled exchange rate to profit and implement a bribery scheme in violation of the FCPA.

US prosecutors maintain that from November 2011 to September 2015, Saab and Polished used the US financial system to launder the illicit proceeds, transferring $350 million from Venezuela, through the US, to offshore accounts they owned or controlled.

Source: Elcomercio