Venezuelan Bribery Suspect Alvaro Pulido, Wanted Since 2019, Is in U.S. Custody
The longtime business partner of Alex Saab faces a Tuesday court date in Miami; the U.S. had offered a $10 million reward for his arrest.
Alvaro Pulido, a businessman wanted for years in the United States for allegedly paying bribes to top Venezuelan officials in exchange for lucrative state contracts, is in U.S. custody, a Homeland Security Task Force spokesperson said Sunday. Pulido was indicted in Miami federal court in 2019 and again in 2021 as part of an investigation into his longtime business partner, Alex Saab, a one-time ally of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the State Department had been offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to Pulido's arrest. Spokesperson Nicole Navas Oxman said he was taken into custody after an investigation led by the DEA, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations. She did not say how he ended up in U.S. custody. He is scheduled to make his initial court appearance Tuesday in Miami.
Prosecutors allege that Pulido and Saab, who are both Colombian-born, created a network of offshore shell companies to funnel bribes to top Maduro allies. In exchange, the two men won contracts to import food, medicine and low-cost housing at a time of widespread hardship in Venezuela. Saab was deported to the United States by Venezuela's acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, in May. Last month he pleaded guilty in a related bribery case, agreeing to cooperate against Maduro and other individuals and to forfeit $195 million in criminal proceeds from the corruption scheme.
Pulido has a history with Venezuela's own anti-corruption drive. He was arrested in Venezuela in 2023 as part of a sprawling crackdown on corruption inside the state-run oil company PDVSA. That crackdown was led by Rodríguez, who was then Maduro's vice president. She took over as acting president after the U.S. military ousted Maduro in January.
Venezuelan authorities have so far been silent about the arrest. That silence reflects the challenge Rodríguez faces in balancing elements of the ruling coalition that want her to resist attempts by the Trump administration to round up scores of Venezuelan insiders wanted by the United States, in some cases for years, on charges ranging from corruption to drug trafficking. Saab's deportation in May showed how far Washington's pressure has reached into the government that replaced Maduro.
The case matters beyond the two men. Saab's guilty plea and his agreement to cooperate give prosecutors an insider who knows how the contract and shell-company network worked, and Pulido, as his longtime partner, is positioned at the center of the same scheme. Whether Pulido follows Saab in cooperating, or fights the 2019 and 2021 indictments, will become clearer after his Tuesday appearance before a federal judge in Miami, where both indictments were filed.
The reward notice, the two indictments and the 2023 arrest in Caracas all trace back to the same conduct: bribes paid to officials in a country where, prosecutors say, ordinary people were struggling to get food and medicine. The Homeland Security Task Force did not say on Sunday how Pulido came into custody.
