A convicted Colombian drug trafficker accused of profiting from President Nicolás Maduro's Venezuelan regime is under arrest in Florida for allegedly laundering hundreds of millions of dollars through the U.S. Alvaro Pulido Vargas, also known as German Enrique Rubio Salas, will face charges in two federal cases and is due in court Tuesday. The State Department and Drug Enforcement Administration had offered up to $10 million for information leading to the 62-year-old's arrest.
"Pulido is charged in two separate, significant money laundering schemes, both using the U.S. financial system to hide the profits from his bribery and greed off the backs of the Venezuelan people," said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva in a press release. "He is no longer a fugitive from justice." Prosecutors say the schemes involved officials in the government of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who is currently being held in New York and facing charges including conspiracy to torture, narcoterrorism and cocaine-smuggling.
It remains unclear how Pulido arrived in the United States, where or how he was taken into custody, or whether he is cooperating with investigators. The announcement does not mention a denial or response from Pulido, and no lawyer acting for him has yet been identified. Newsweek has contacted The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida for comment.
Pulido, who was convicted in 1997 of drug-trafficking in Italy under his "German Enrique Rubio Salas" alias, was indicted by the U.S. Justice Department in 2019 and 2021 and is scheduled to make his first appearance in federal court in the Southern District of Florida. Pulido is described by prosecutors as a Colombian businessman who worked with Alex Saab, a former Maduro ally who pleaded guilty in September to a related money-laundering charge.
Saab agreed to cooperate with U.S. prosecutors and forfeit $195 million. Pulido and others used Venezuela's government-run food and medicine distribution program, known as CLAP, to secure contracts worth around $1.6 billion, according to the 2021 indictment. The group inflated contract costs, paid bribes to Venezuelan officials and moved proceeds through bank accounts in several countries, including the U.S., say prosecutors.
Pulido faces one money-laundering conspiracy count and four money-laundering counts in that case, each carrying a potential maximum sentence of 20 years, the Justice Department said. The separate 2019 indictment involves a money-laundering conspiracy charge and seven money-laundering counts and centers on an alleged scheme involving Venezuela’s currency-exchange system and a low-income housing contract. Pulido and Saab used false import documents and bribes to move about $350 million out of Venezuela through U.S. accounts and into overseas accounts, say prosecutors.
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