Dictator Nicolás Maduro appointed Colombian businessman Alex Saab as the new president of Venezuela’s Center for International Productive Investment (CIIP)

Dictator Nicolás Maduro appointed his frontman, Colombian businessman Alex Saab, released in December by the United States in a prisoner exchange with Caracas, as the new president of Venezuela’s Center for International Productive Investment (CIIP)

“I announce the appointment of Alex Saab Morán as the new president of the Center for Productive Investments in Venezuela, so that he, with his experience, can help our country attract investments and bring the economic strength of the world.”

The CIIP was created in October 2020 by Maduro with the aim of attracting local and foreign capital to boost the national economy and for the “registration, study, and monitoring” of sanctions imposed on Venezuela’s economy.

Saab was extradited to the U.S. in 2021 from Cape Verde, where he had been detained since June 2020 when his plane made a technical stop in the African country on a return trip from Iran to Venezuela. Saab was accused of transferring $350 million out of Venezuela to foreign accounts under his ownership or control, and part of that money is believed to be linked to Dictator Maduro.

On December 20, the U.S. released the businessman in a prisoner exchange with Venezuela, where Caracas released ten Americans and about twenty Venezuelans considered “political prisoners.”

The pardon granted by U.S. President Joe Biden to Saab prohibits him from profiting from films or books about his life, among other conditions. However, the pardon does not prohibit Saab from returning to political or business life.

Source