The architect of Venezuela’s cooperation with Iran and Hezbollah

Once again, Venezuelan-Lebanese businessman Alex Saab has returned to prison following an operation by Venezuelan security forces carried out in coordination with U.S. law-enforcement authorities. Long regarded as the financial operator of the Caracas regime and a key ally of deposed president Nicolás Maduro, Saab now finds himself in custody for a second time. Born in Colombia, he was first arrested in Cape Verde in 2020, detained in the United States for more than three years, and later released in exchange for ten Americans held in Venezuela. His lawyer denies the latest detention, yet U.S. officials insist Caracas will hand him over within days.

The rise and fall of Alex Saab encapsulates a shifting geopolitical landscape linking Latin America and the Middle East. He was neither merely a businessman nor a diplomat, as supporters claim, nor simply a money-launderer, as critics portray him. For nearly fifteen years, Saab functioned as the “central nervous system” of Venezuela’s financial power structure.

He is accused of playing a pivotal role in constructing sanctions-evasion mechanisms that tied Caracas to Tehran, the Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, while also engaging with smuggling mafias in South America’s so-called Tri-Border Area. Allegations further include orchestrating Venezuelan passport schemes for Middle Eastern operatives and managing logistics that connected Colombian drug cartels to the Venezuelan state.

Born Alex Nain Saab Morán in Colombia in 1971 to Lebanese immigrant Luis Saab, he grew up immersed in the Lebanese-Syrian commercial diaspora that dominates segments of the textile and retail trade along Colombia’s northern coast. His early career in textiles revealed a penchant for document manipulation and navigating customs loopholes — skills that would later scale up to state-level schemes involving inflated invoicing, asset misrepresentation and smuggling.

Leveraging his background, Saab forged ties with influential Venezuelan figures, most notably Tareck El Aissami, the Syrian-Lebanese Venezuelan powerbroker who rose to become one of Maduro’s strongest lieutenants. Initially an outsider to Venezuela’s traditional oligarchy, Saab’s Lebanese connections were viewed as a gateway to regional actors opposed to “U.S. imperialism”, transforming him into a bridge between the Bolivarian Revolution and the Middle East’s so-called “Axis of Resistance”.

State contractor

In 2011, Colombian senator Piedad Córdoba introduced Saab to circles close to the Venezuelan government, allowing him to bypass conventional bureaucratic scrutiny and gain direct access to decision-makers in Caracas.

His first major enrichment scheme revolved around manipulating Venezuela’s currency-control system. Together with a partner linked to narcotics trafficking, Saab secured a massive government contract to build prefabricated housing units. The plan was deceptively simple yet economically devastating: over-invoicing materials, inflating prices dramatically, and falsifying documents to claim imports that never arrived, or arrived in far smaller quantities.

Saab obtained U.S. dollars at the state’s preferential exchange rate to finance these “imports”, then sold surplus currency on the black market for enormous profits while funneling capital into offshore tax havens. Investigations later suggested that although he received roughly $159m from the Venezuelan government to import construction materials, the real value of delivered goods barely exceeded $3m. That gap provided the initial capital that would finance his empire’s expansion into food distribution, gold mining and oil logistics.

By 2016, Venezuela’s economic crisis had spiralled into catastrophe. Maduro responded by launching the CLAP food distribution system, ostensibly to alleviate shortages and maintain social control in poorer neighbourhoods. Saab emerged as both a central architect and chief beneficiary.

Food supplies purchased through his network were widely criticised for poor quality. Chemical analysis of powdered milk distributed under Saab-linked schemes revealed dangerously high sodium levels and negligible calcium content, effectively an unregulated white powder rather than genuine milk.

The Venezuelan government paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Saab’s shell companies, funds allegedly laundered through accounts in Antigua, Switzerland and Russia before being recycled into procurement cycles or diverted to private accounts tied to regime insiders, including relatives of Maduro’s wife known as “Los Chamos”.

As U.S. sanctions tightened, Saab shifted operations to Turkey in 2018, developing a “gold-for-food” mechanism. Venezuelan gold, often mined illegally, was shipped abroad, and revenues were ostensibly used to buy food from Turkish suppliers, effectively removing the U.S. dollar from the transaction chain.

From food to fuel and diplomacy

By 2019, the collapse of Venezuela’s refining capacity created severe fuel shortages. Maduro reintroduced Saab as a “special envoy” tasked with negotiating energy deals with Iran. The role was as political as it was commercial, aimed at breaking Washington’s blockade of Venezuela’s energy sector.

Saab allegedly facilitated the transfer of gold bars from Venezuela’s central bank vaults to Tehran. In exchange, Iran dispatched tankers loaded with gasoline and additives, as well as technicians and spare parts to repair the Paraguaná refinery complex.

Using his network, Saab chartered vessels and insured shipments that legitimate insurers refused to touch. Transactions were opaque, often settled in physical gold or cash to avoid the SWIFT banking system. During this period, he evolved from a corrupt contractor into a core operational pillar of regime survival.

To shield him during these missions, Maduro’s government granted Saab diplomatic status, first as a “special envoy”, later as an alternate permanent representative to the African Union, and issued him a Venezuelan diplomatic passport intended to confer legal immunity under the Vienna Convention.

Hezbollah, Syria and the smuggling triangle

Saab’s operational networks intersected deeply with Hezbollah’s financial apparatus, primarily through Tareck El Aissami and the Tri-Border Area linking Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. El Aissami, a former vice-president and oil minister, served as a key conduit between Caracas and Hezbollah. The United States has designated him a major narcotics trafficker and accused him of facilitating Venezuelan passports for Middle Eastern militants.

Saab allegedly acted as El Aissami’s financial engine, providing liquidity that blended profits from housing schemes with funds derived from illicit networks tied to Hezbollah, including narcotics trafficking channels.

Intelligence reports suggest Venezuelan identities were sold or granted to individuals from Syria, Lebanon and Iran, enabling easier travel across Western countries. One intelligence document cited more than 10,000 such passports issued between 2010 and 2019. Saab’s alleged role included modernising Venezuela’s identity and immigration systems, giving his network the ability to manipulate databases and create “ghost identities”, a capability that reportedly facilitated Hezbollah external-operations travel under clean Latin American aliases.

The tri-border area and trade-based money laundering

The Tri-Border Area has long been considered a financial hub for Hezbollah, rife with money laundering and smuggling. Saab’s network intersected with the Barakat Group, a Hezbollah-linked financing ring sanctioned by the U.S. State Department.

The mechanism relied heavily on trade-based money laundering: Saab-controlled shell companies in Hong Kong and Turkey shipped low-value textiles or goods to firms in the Tri-Border region, massively over-invoicing shipments. This allowed illicit funds from narcotics sales or other criminal activities in Latin America to flow into the Middle East disguised as import payments.

Investigations also targeted Saab-linked textile firms in Colombia for allegedly laundering drug proceeds through the border triangle before repatriating funds to Colombia or Venezuela. In effect, the smuggling triangle became a washing machine for capital derived both from corruption in Venezuela and narcotics networks tied to Saab’s associates.

His network extended to Syria as well. Intelligence reporting suggests he coordinated shipments of grain and fuel to Assad’s government, using the same shadow fleets that served Venezuela. These operations, moving between Latakia, Bandar Abbas and Puerto Cabello with transponders switched off, helped Damascus bypass Caesar Act sanctions while securing phosphate deals and agricultural cargo to balance return voyages.

Drug trafficking and the Walid Makled connection

Before reaching the apex of the Chavista state, Saab’s trajectory intersected with Walid Makled, a Syrian-Venezuelan narcotics trafficker known as “El Turco”, who once controlled Puerto Cabello port and infiltrated segments of Venezuela’s military leadership.

Although Saab denies direct involvement in drug trafficking, investigators argue that his financial structures mirrored those used by Makled to launder drug dollars. After Makled’s arrest and extradition in 2011, Saab allegedly absorbed parts of his logistics network, particularly contacts within customs and port authorities.

A scandal during detention

Court documents unsealed during Saab’s first detention revealed that in 2018 he had acted as a cooperating source for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), meeting agents in Bogotá and Europe, admitting to paying bribes and even handing over funds. He was expected to surrender in 2019 but missed the deadline, prompting formal charges. The revelation shattered his image as a loyal revolutionary and suggested a double game, profiting from the regime while exploring an exit strategy with U.S. authorities.

Following his release in December 2023, Saab returned to Caracas to a hero’s welcome from Maduro and was elevated to minister of industry and national production, underscoring the regime’s reliance on his informal financial networks.

Saab was more than a corrupt businessman. His career traced Venezuela’s transformation into what critics describe as a mafia state, from early currency manipulation to complex gold-for-fuel barter with Iran. His ties to Hezbollah and the Syrian regime were transactional yet essential, providing financial infrastructure for the “Axis of Resistance” in the Western Hemisphere.

Though the “architect” may have fallen, the illicit financial blueprints he developed are likely to be studied, and perhaps replicated, by other sanctioned regimes for years to come. Dismantling his network remains a priority for U.S. national security planners and their allies in a post-Maduro era.