Chavista’s delegation arrived at the negotiating table in Mexico carrying posters calling for the release of Alex Saab, Maduro’s front man imprisoned for money laundering.
The new round of negotiations between the Maduro regime and the Venezuelan opposition is getting more complicated: yesterday The scheduled session was suspended after Chavismo’s delegates did not arrive in Mexico City Today, 24 hours later than expected, they arrive at the meeting place but with provocative posters of Alex Saab, Maduro’s number one man accused of laundering millionaire money and whose extradition to the United States has already been approved by Cabo Justice. The delegation arrived a day later than expected and was picked up with posters of the Colombian businessman who had already agreed Cape Verdean to be extradited to the United States, where he was arrested.
It is in recent weeks that the Venezuelan regime has launched its latest maneuvers to try to stop the delivery. He asserts that Saab is a diplomat in his government and requested integration at the dialogue table in Mexico.
The businessman’s name appeared in the media when former Venezuelan prosecutor Luisa Ortega Diaz accused him in 2017 of being one of the Venezuelan dictator’s pioneers.
Of Lebanese origin and born in Barranquilla, Colombia, Saab is associated with several companies, but her main link with Maduro will be through Group Grand Limited (GGL), which is said to sell food to the system at subsidized prices for distribution in modest neighborhoods. However, both Saab and Maduro have been accused on various occasions of using the program, known as CLAP, to illegally seize hundreds of millions of dollars.
Indeed, Saab, along with three of Maduro’s stepchildren and nine other people, was sanctioned in July 2019 by the United States for this delicate maneuver. For this reason, everyone has Freeze all assets or real estate they may have in the United States.
Alex Saab pledged with Maduro’s informants to lead a large-scale corruption network that they brutally used to exploit the starving population of Venezuela. The Treasury Secretary explained at the time that the Treasury was targeting those behind Maduro’s complex corruption schemes, as well as the global network of shell companies that profited from the former regime’s military-controlled food distribution program.” US Treasury, Steven Mnuchin.
The corruption network that runs CLAP allowed Maduro and his relatives to steal from the Venezuelan people. They use food as a form of social control, to reward political supporters and punish opponents, while earning hundreds of millions of dollars through a series of fraudulent schemes.”
Journalist Gerardo Reyes, the author of the book Alex Saab. Truth”, revealed that the mysterious businessman from Barranquilla took advantage of a network of fictitious companies destined for fictitious imports, while handling the various commercial affairs of the Bolivarian regime, She managed to amass a fortune of at least a billion dollars. Day by day he has solved one of the most pressing problems of the Venezuelan government. When the problem of food needed a solution for lack of milk, they called it; When there was no fuel, he would go and negotiate the shipment of fuel tanks from Iran,” he confirmed to Infobae a few days ago.
In this way, it has established close commercial and diplomatic relations with countries such as Turkey, Iran and Russia, with the primary objective of Helping the Venezuelan dictator circumvent international sanctions.
There were dozens of shell companies he developed in different countries in Latin America, Europe and even the United States. But Saab’s main link with Maduro is through Group Grand Limited (GGL), which is said to be selling food to the system at subsidized prices for distribution in slums. However, both have been accused on various occasions of using this program, known as CLAP, to illegally obtain hundreds of millions of dollars. It has been reported that they serve spoiled food.
The third round of talks, taking place in Mexico with Norwegian arbitration, was supposed to start on Friday, but Maduro’s representatives sowed opposition by not attending the meeting.
Although the government did not justify his absence, Venezuela’s executive vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, attacked the US ambassador to the country, James Storey, on Friday, who accused him of ordering the opposition “on what to do at the negotiating table.”
A message endorsed by Jorge Rodriguez, the speaker of the Venezuelan parliament and leader of the government’s negotiating team, who wrote that the Venezuelan executive “will never attend to an agenda that this character is trying to impose,” referring to the ambassador.
It was the representative of the opposition delegation, Gerardo Blade, who reported Friday evening through a statement that Chavista did not attend the meeting. Despite this absence, Blade endorsed the opposition’s “commitment” to “continue negotiations on an agreed agenda”. As he explained, this tour was planned to “set a welfare table” and “discuss the construction of the justice system.”
After the failure of five attempts at dialogue in the past seven years, the international community is betting that this time the way will open to a negotiated and electoral solution to the complex economic and social crisis in Venezuela, which has unleashed immigration. Six million people in recent years.
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