Judge rejects Venezuelan contractor claim he was a ‘diplomat’
A federal judge rejected Alex Saab Moran’s claim that he immune from prosecution in a $350 million money laundering case, setting the stage for a Miami trial.
A contractor for Venezuela who made a fortune off government deals and allegedly moved millions of dollars to Miami lost his bid to have a corruption indictment thrown out after a federal judge Friday denied his diplomatic immunity claim.
Alex Saab Moran claimed he was a “diplomat” for President Nicolas Maduro’s regime when he was arrested on a trade mission to Iran in 2020.
Saab, with the backing of the Venezuelan government, tried to persuade U.S. District Judge Robert Scola to dismiss a $350 million money laundering indictment filed against him in 2019, claiming he had been designated as a “special envoy” for Venezuela the previous year and was therefore immune from prosecution.
But Scola found that Saab, a Colombian citizen who did substantial business
Alex Saab with the Venezuelan government, was not an actual special envoy as he claimed when he was supposedly traveling for Maduro to Iran on the gold-for-gasoline trade mission and at most was a “representative.” The judge accused the Venezuelan government of doctoring certain documents to make the contractor appear legitimate. As a result, Saab, 51, was not entitled to diplomatic immunity from prosecution under U.S. and international law in the high-profile criminal case in Miami.
“The Court is not convinced that the 2018 credential that Saab Moran relied on to support his claim to diplomatic status is legitimate nor is the Court convinced of its relation to his dealings in Iran,” Scola wrote in his 15-page order. “And, even if Saab Moran had truly been proclaimed to be a ‘special envoy’ in 2018, the evidence does not convince the Court that Saab Moran was traveling as anything more than a lay businessman to broker a deal when arrested in June of 2020.
“For these reasons alone, the Court finds that Saab Moran’s assertion of diplomatic immunity is a nonstarter. At the time he was arrested, Saab Moran truly was no diplomat at all.”
Saab’s defense attorney, Neil Schuster, said
that he will appeal Scola’s decision, which sets the stage for a trial next year.
Saab is among dozens of Venezuelan officials, businessmen and contractors who have been accused in Miami federal court of collectively stealing billions of dollars from their government in corruption schemes allegedly involving Maduro, the late president, Hugo Chavez, and other high-ranking officials. Earlier this month, a former Venezuelan national treasurer and her husband were convicted at trial in Fort Lauderdale federal court of accepting bribes and laundering $100 million through U.S. and European banks.
Saab was arrested in the Republic of Cape Verde off the west coast of Africa en route to Iran for a Venezuelan trade mission in June 2020. He was extradited last year after fighting his transfer to Miami based on his claim of diplomatic immunity. As part of the extradition deal, federal prosecutors Kurt Lunkenheimer and Alexander Kramer agreed to dismiss almost all of the lengthy indictment against Saab, who is accused of laundering $350 million in Venezuelan government funds, including wire transfers into South Florida’s banking system.
The dismissal of all but one main conspiracy count was done as part of a secret deal made with the Republic of Cape Verde to gain his extradition to the United States, according to court papers. Saab, however, still faces up to 20 years in prison on the lone remaining moneylaundering charge involving a scheme prosecutors say ripped off money from a Venezuelan housing program that was supposed to benefit the poor in the economically depressed country.
Saab, with the help of the Venezuelan government, had hoped to rely on his claim of diplomatic immunity to gain his freedom before trial. Scola, the judge, also highlighted that Saab was working as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Miami at the same time he was supposedly designated as a “special envoy” for Venezuela.
TALKS ON COOPERATION
Saab, who is close to Maduro, started communicating with DEA and
FBI agents in Bogota, Colombia, about his planned cooperation in 2016. With his lawyers he continued those discussions with federal agents and prosecutors through June 2018, when he signed a “cooperating source agreement” with the DEA, the court document filed by prosecutors says.
Saab communicated with DEA special agents “via telephone, text and voice messaging,” the document says, and he “engaged in proactive cooperation,” meaning he recorded conversations with co-conspirators targeted in the U.S. investigation.
Saab also made four wire transfers totaling more than $12 million of his Venezuelan contract profits to a U.S. bank account controlled by the DEA as part of his cooperation with the agency, the document says. But when Saab failed to surrender to the DEA by May 30, 2019, his cooperation deal as a federal informant ended.
Scola pointed out Saab’s parallel roles in his order, noting the inconsistencies in his claim of being a diplomat who had made three trips to Iran for the Venezuelan government during this period.
“All of those interactions [with U.S. law enforcement] took place after he was allegedly appointed as a special envoy in April 2018,” the judge wrote in his ruling. “Yet, during none of these meetings or interactions, including a meeting during which he signed a cooperation agreement with the agents, did he ever represent to the agents that he was working as a diplomat for the Maduro regime.”
Scola not only took Saab to task for claiming to be a diplomat, but he also accused the Venezuelan government of colluding with him after his arrest in a scheme to free him from U.S. custody.
“Against this sum of evidentiary inconsistencies and indications of documentary manipulation, the Court is left to conclude that the Maduro regime has, in a post hoc manner, done its best to imprint upon Saab Moran a diplomatic status that he did not factually possess on June 12, 2020,” Scola wrote.
“The evidence suggests that the Maduro regime and its accomplices have fabricated documents to cloak Saab Moran in a diplomatic dress that does not befit him, all in an effort to exploit the law of diplomatic immunities and prevent his extradition to the United States.”