World
Venezuelan Businessman Pulido Arrested in U.S. After Years of Investigation
Alvaro Pulido, a 62‑year‑old businessman, was taken into U.S. custody after a joint investigation by the DEA, FBI and Homeland Security Investigations. Pulido has been wanted in the United States for years on allegations that he paid bribes to senior Venezuelan officials in exchange for lucrative state contracts. He was first indicted in Miami federal court in 2019 and again in 2021 as part of an inquiry into his longtime business partner, Alex Saab, a former ally of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. The U.S. Department of Justice had offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to Pulido’s arrest. Pulido was scheduled to appear in court in Miami on Tuesday. U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche posted on social media that Pulido’s alleged actions “show a blatant disregard to the Venezuelan people by corrupting government programs intended to provide critical food, medicine, and housing for personal enrichment and exploiting the American financial system to do it.” He added that no amount of time or distance would stop the Justice Department from pursuing the case in an American courtroom.
Venezuelan authorities have not commented on the arrest. Pulido was previously arrested in Venezuela in 2023 during a broad anti‑corruption campaign against the state‑run oil company PDVSA, led by acting president Delcy Rodríguez while she was vice‑president under Maduro. Prosecutors allege that Pulido and Saab operated a network of offshore shell companies to funnel bribes to top Maduro allies in return for more than $2 billion in contracts to import food, medicine and low‑cost housing during a period of widespread hardship in the country. Pulido’s criminal record also includes a 1997 drug‑trafficking conviction in Italy, where he was known as German Enrique Rubio. Saab, also Colombian, was deported to the United States by Rodríguez in May and in September pleaded guilty in a related bribery case, agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors and forfeit $195 million in criminal proceeds from the scheme.