CARACAS, VENEZUELA- The Biden administration continues to make deals with foreign dictators to trade American hostages for criminals with ties to terrorist organizations.
This past week, the administration worked out a swap with Venezuelan tyrant Nicolas Maduro whereby he agreed to release ten Americans and a fugitive wanted in the United States in exchange for a close ally of Maduro, Alex Saab, The Guardian reported.
In 2021, Saab was arrested as he was headed to Iran, as reported in The Times of Israel in October 2021. A factor ignored by the media when announcing the swap is the fact that Saab acted in the capacity of a money launderer for Maduro, with some media reports indicating that cash ended up supporting Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy terrorist militia in Lebanon. After being extradited to the United States, Saab said he would not cooperate with the United States.
After Saab was extradited, Maduro lashed out at the United States, calling it “one of the most ignoble and vulgar injustices that has been committed in recent decades.”
Saab is a Colombian national who was accused, along with his business partner, Alvaro Pulido, “with running a network that exploited food aid destined for Venezuela, an oil-rich nation mired in an acute economic crisis,” The Times of Israel wrote.
It was alleged that the men removed $350 million from Venezuela into accounts in the United States and other countries.
Securing Saab’s release was a priority for Maduro, with the 2021 report quoting a journalist with the Venezuelan investigative news site Armando.info saying the Maduro regime was “desperate” to get him released.
“It is clear that there is a lot of fear, not only because he may reveal information about bribes, about the places where money was moved and the inflated pricing,” journalist Roberto Deniz said, noting Saab “was the bridge for many of these deals that the Maduro regime is beginning to carry out with other allied countries.”
As part of the deal negotiated with Biden sycophants, Maduro also agreed to release 20 Venezuelan citizens from jail. Upon arrival in Caracas, Venezuela, Saab received a hero’s welcome, with the Maduro administration releasing the following statement:
“The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela rejoices at the release and homecoming of our diplomat Alex Saab, who has been unjustly kidnapped in a US prison.”
In a televised address after Saab’s arrival, Maduor credited the government of Qatar, which is also the home of leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization, for being a “brilliant facilitator” in talks leading to the deal.
Biden said 10 US citizens were headed home as part of the deal, including six whom he said were “wrongfully detained.” Biden also took the occasion to warn US citizens not to travel to Venezuela:
‘These individuals have lost far too much precious time with their loved ones, and their families have suffered every day in their absence. I am grateful their ordeal is finally over and that these families are being made whole once more.”
Leonard Francis, the fugitive who was returned to the US as part of the deal, was implicated in what Biden called “a brazen robbery and corruption case.” As reported by the Washington Post in 2016, the so-called “Fat Leonard scandal” involved a security breach involving US Navy personnel:
“In perhaps the worst national-security breach of its kind to hit the navy since the end of the cold war, Francis doled out sex and money to a shocking number of people in uniform who fed him classified material about US warship and submarine movements.”
Only some were happy about the exchange, however. Marshall Billingslea, a US Treasury official who investigated Saab during the Trump administration, said the release was “a heavy blow to US credibility in the fight against corruption, particularly in Latin America.”
“Worse, it’s a ‘gut-punch’ to the Venezuelan opposition,” Billingslea said in a post on “X,” while calling Saab a vile “hunger profiteer and Maduro bag-man.” “We are supposedly their friends, but we just let one of the worst Boligarch thieves walk free,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, slammed the exchange:
“We welcome reports that Americans are returning home after years of imprisonment under the Maduro regime. However, we remain deeply troubled by the weakness of the Biden Administration–which continues to be extorted by foreign adversaries using Americans as pawns. “Alex Saab ran Maruro’s global money laundering empire and his relationships with Hezbollah and drug cartels. He is now free to do so again. Today’s swap strengthens Maduro and makes Americans less safe around the world.”
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