Feds Arrest Fugitive Charged in Venezuelan Bribery and Laundering Schemes

The Justice Department says a Homeland Security Task Force arrested Alvaro Pulido Vargas to face charges in multibillion-dollar Venezuelan money laundering and bribery schemes. He appears in a Florida federal court Tuesday, The Rio Times reports. The department announced the arrest on Sunday, October 11.

The Rio Times reports Pulido, 62, is Colombian and was taken out of Venezuela by U.S. federal agents. Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed the arrest in a post on X and said Homeland Security Task Force officers had detained him. The task force in Miami brings together the DEA, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, according to The Rio Times.

A. Tysen Duva, the assistant attorney general who heads the Criminal Division, said Pulido is no longer a fugitive from justice, The Rio Times reports. Jason A. Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney in Miami, called the allegations a profound betrayal of the Venezuelan people. Nicole Navas Oxman, a task force spokesperson, told The Associated Press the investigation was led by the DEA, FBI and Homeland Security Investigations, but she did not say how Pulido ended up in U.S. custody.

The Associated Press reports Pulido was indicted in Miami federal court in 2019 and again in 2021 in an investigation into his longtime business partner Alex Saab, a one-time ally of ousted President Nicolás Maduro. The 2021 case involves about US$1.6 billion in food-programme contracts and US$180 million moved through the U.S., and the 2019 case involves about US$350 million laundered, per The Rio Times. The DEA and State Department had offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to his arrest, the AP reports.

Saab, a Colombian businessman who served as an industry minister under Maduro, has pleaded guilty in the Southern District of Florida to conspiracy to commit money laundering, The Rio Times reports. The AP reports Pulido was arrested in Venezuela in 2023 as part of a crackdown on corruption inside the state oil company PDVSA, a crackdown led by Delcy Rodríguez while she was Maduro's vice president. Rodríguez is now Venezuela's acting president, and the AP reports Venezuelan authorities have so far said nothing about the arrest.