"Nicolas Maduro, cheerful and emotional, embraced Alex Saab in Miraflores and told him he had always known the day of his freedom would come. The Colombian businessman accused of being Maduro's front man and of playing a key role in the financial operations of Chavismo had spent three years detained between Cape Verde and the United States. Today, the two men in that embrace are both imprisoned in jails in New York and Miami."
"Saab landed on Saturday at an airport in Florida wearing a gray jumpsuit, his signature long dark hair, and a graying severalweek beard, after the very government that rescued him from a U.S. moneylaundering case less than three years ago handed him back to U.S. authorities. Saab's downfall has marked the end of one of the last symbols of the power wielded by Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores a power they were stripped of on January 3, when a U.S. specialforces unit captured them in a military operation."
"Since then, his vice president and economic right hand, Delcy Rodriguez, has installed an interim government overseen from Washington. The Colombian financier was one of the first pieces of Maduro's inner circle that Rodriguez moved to topple, barely two weeks after the U.S. intervention. She dismissed him on social media with a message thanking him for his work. The two had worked together directly when Rodriguez was vice president for the economic sector."
"One of the first tasks he performed when he began working behind the scenes for Maduro more than a decade ago was orchestrating the underground economy that allowed Chavismo to stay afloat amid U.S. sanctions. In Rodriguez's messages dismissing Saab which she deleted on Saturday she said that he would be assigned new responsibilities. But after leaving the executive branch, his fall from grace accelerated."
Nicolas Maduro embraced Alex Saab in Miraflores after Saab’s release from a U.S. money-laundering case. Saab had been detained for three years between Cape Verde and the United States, accused of acting as Maduro’s front man and managing financial operations for Chavismo. After being rescued less than three years earlier, Saab was handed back to U.S. authorities by the same government that had rescued him. Saab arrived in Florida wearing a gray jumpsuit and was taken into custody. Maduro and Cilia Flores lost power after a U.S. special-forces operation on January 3, and Delcy Rodriguez installed an interim government overseen from Washington. Rodriguez dismissed Saab from executive responsibilities, and his downfall accelerated after Maduro’s arrest.
Read at english.elpais.com
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