ع
A Homeland Security Task Force arrested Alvaro Pulido Vargas during an operation on October 11 and the 62-year-old Colombian national is scheduled to make his initial court appearance on October 13 in the Southern District of Florida, according to the US Justice Department. Pulido Vargas, who also uses the name German Enrique Rubio Salas, had been wanted for years on the two separate indictments returned in 2019 and 2021. The Justice Department noted that a $10 million reward had been offered by the State Department and Drug Enforcement Administration for information leading to his arrest.
The 2021 indictment charges Pulido Vargas and four co-defendants with conspiracy to commit money laundering and additional counts tied to a scheme involving the Venezuelan government’s CLAP program for distributing food and medicine. From approximately July 2015 through at least 2020 the defendants allegedly paid bribes to secure contracts worth about $1.6 billion and then inflated costs to cover the payoffs while enriching themselves, court documents show. Proceeds were laundered through accounts in Antigua, the United Arab Emirates and the United States including some in the Southern District of Florida with roughly $180 million transferred through or to US banks, the Justice Department reported.
A separate 2019 indictment accuses Pulido Vargas and his longtime associate Alex Saab of laundering approximately $350 million through a bribery scheme involving contracts for low-income housing units. Prosecutors allege the pair exploited Venezuela’s government-controlled currency exchange system by submitting false import documents for goods that were never brought into the country and bribed officials to approve the payments, according to the US Justice Department. The scheme ran from about November 2011 through at least September 2015 and moved funds out of Venezuela into accounts controlled by the defendants, the indictment states.
Pulido Vargas had been held in a Venezuelan prison since March 2023 on separate corruption charges related to the state oil company PDVSA, multiple outlets including the Associated Press reported. It remains unclear precisely how he was transferred into US custody although some accounts indicate involvement by DEA agents in removing him from Venezuelan detention. Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva stated that Pulido is charged in two separate significant money laundering schemes both using the US financial system to hide the profits from his bribery and greed off the backs of the Venezuelan people.
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the arrest on X and emphasized that the Justice Department will pursue foreign bribery or money laundering schemes brought inside US borders. The cases form part of a broader US investigation into corruption surrounding contracts awarded by the Maduro government during a period of severe economic hardship in Venezuela when millions relied on subsidized food distributions. Alex Saab, Pulido Vargas’s business partner, pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in a US court two months earlier, according to BBC reporting that cited US prosecutors.
US officials have long described the CLAP program as a vehicle for graft with contracts awarded to politically connected intermediaries who overcharged the government. A 2021 State Department assessment listed Pulido Vargas among key figures in these networks and detailed how gold liquidation schemes were used to circumvent US dollar shortages and settle payments to foreign suppliers. The indictments underscore how Venezuelan procurement systems allegedly funneled public funds into offshore accounts while basic goods remained scarce for ordinary citizens.
