Venezuela announced that it has extradited Alex Saab to the United States. Saab, a close associate of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, has long been accused of serving as a key intermediary for Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Caracas.
The development is particularly notable because Saab was already previously held by the US. He was arrested in Cape Verde in 2020 on American money laundering charges, extradited to the United States in 2021, and prosecuted in Miami over alleged sanctions-evasion and corruption schemes tied to the Maduro regime.
However, in 2023 the Biden administration released Saab as part of a prisoner exchange deal with Venezuela that secured the release of detained Americans.
US officials and regional intelligence sources have for years linked Saab to financial networks, sanctions evasion operations, and logistical coordination involving Iran-backed actors operating throughout Latin America.