The “ruins” of Alex Saab in Venezuela
The “ruins” of Alex Saab in Venezuela :-
If the schedule is met, on January 20, 2027, at 2:00 p.m., Alex Nain Saab Morán will hear his sentence in the Florida court where he recently pleaded guilty to the crime of Conspiracy to Launder Money through the business of supplying food to the Local Supply and Production Committee (CLAP).
When that day comes, a little over a year will have passed since the capture of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores by elite US troops, an event that marked the dizzying fall from grace and immediate fate of the Colombian merchant, after more than a decade acting in the shadows as the presidential family's favorite contractor and financial operator.
But you don't need to go so far ahead to say that 2026 has already been his annus horribilis. Delcy Rodríguez quickly relieved him of his position as Minister of Industries, ordered his arrest amid official secrecy last February and, in May, “deported” him to the United States, alleging that he had outstanding accounts with the justice system of that country and irregularities with his Venezuelan identity card.
Upon arriving in Miami, he was accused once again of money laundering in the CLAP business and, now without the support of the Caracas regime, which protected him for years, He pleaded guilty on September 15th. Now he must provide relevant information to US authorities about his crimes and accomplices, in addition to the $195 million he has already agreed to hand over, if he wants to reduce the planned 20-year prison sentence for the charges he accepted.
Thus, in a matter of months, Saab Morán suffered setbacks that he managed to evade for years, including the one that the US justice system itself had in store for him after his triumphant return - without having faced trial - to Venezuela in December 2023. He then escaped an initial 2019 indictment for company-related money laundering Global Construction Fund, which caused his Capture in June 2020 in Cape Verde, as well as his subsequent and first extradition to the United States, in October 2021.
Like any collapsing empire, Alex Saab's also left behind its own “ruins” in Venezuela which, while not tourist attractions, now pass through a particular memorial of power and corruption: former partners arrested, companies and offices abandoned, at least two luxurious houses in eastern Caracas, three private planes and even one boutique of luxury brands and a beach club on Margarita Island, both called Calle Dos Ojos.
In some cases, these properties have been placed in the custody of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim), as verified Armando.Info on a tour of some of them.
On August 26, three weeks before Alex Saab admitted his guilt in the United States, edition 43,445 of the circulated in Venezuela Official Gazette, which confirmed the “temporary occupation” of Corporación Inlaca CA, the dairy products company behind emblematic brands in the Venezuelan market, such as Carabobo and Mi Vaca, which the Colombian maintained under your control since March 2019.
That year he bought it through third parties and with a paper company registered in the United Arab Emirates, called Mirona Food FZE, as a vehicle. A first delegate of Alex Saab in the company was Jorge Arraut, who had already worked for Saab and his main partner, Álvaro Pulido Vargas, in Trenaco, an unknown oil company that the state oil company PDVSA favored with a contract $4.5 billion in 2015.
In addition to Arraut, Carlos Rolando Lizcano Manrique, also Colombian and Saab's trusted man, was in charge of Inlaca. On June 7, 2024, when Saab had already returned to Caracas and was serving as president of the state-owned International Center for Productive Investment (CIIP), Lizcano transferred the company to Moxem Food LLC, another paper company registered in the United Arab Emirates, also controlled by people from Saab.
The representative of Moxem Food for June 7, 2024 was another Colombian citizen, Rafael Andrés More Jaramillo, who became General Manager of the Venezuelan dairy company. More Jaramillo is the husband of Andrea Alejandra Peñarredonda Gómez, who worked in Caracas with Camilla Fabri, Saab's wife, and is also the sister of lawyer Daniel Peñarredonda Gómez, who was a partner in the law firm De La Espriella Lawyers of Abelardo De La Espriella, now president of Colombia and, for years, star lawyer of the Barranquilla businessman.
Last Monday the magazine Change from Colombia he published that Andrea Peñarredonda recently visited the San Carlos Palace, in Bogotá, chosen by De La Espriella as the first presidential headquarters to dispatch when he is in the Colombian capital. The building traditionally housed the Colombian Foreign Ministry.
In November 2025, journalist Vicky Dávila, then presidential candidate and opponent of De La Espriella in the fight for the definitive nomination of the right-wing bloc, described Andrea Peñarredonda as “right-hand woman” of Camilla Fabri, whom Maduro also appointed to public positions, and He asked the current president for explanations Colombian about his relationship with Daniel Peñarredonda and that circle that still orbited around Saab.
In the Official Gazette which announced the “temporary occupation” of Inlaca for a period of 180 days, details about the owners of the company and any relationship with Alex Saab are omitted. But he did establish that, after an inspection, the authorities verified that “the owners, legal representatives, managers or managers were not at the headquarters of the commercial company”, so in their absence they proceeded to make the takeover of the company official.
Inlaca workers consulted for this report claimed that Rafael More disappeared without explanation after the deportation of Alex Saab to the United States, announced on May 16 in a brief statement of the Administrative Service for Identification, Migration and Immigration (Saime). They asserted that since 2019 working conditions have deteriorated, right under Saab's management, there have been mass layoffs and that labor inspectorates have refused the corresponding re-engagement, aspects that have not changed with the current intervention of the Ministry of Industries. “We have been without pay for four years and with the same $200 bonus for two years”, stated one of the reporting workers, who asked Armando.info keep your name in reserve.
Neither Rafael More nor Andrea Peñarredonda responded to the respective interview requests that Armando.info He sent them by email. Álvaro Pulido Vargas has been detained in Caracas since April 2023 in connection with the case PDVSA-Crypto, while Carlos Lizcano was also under arrest last February after the capture of Saab himself, making them almost impossible to contact.
In addition to the plant in Carabobo state, Inlaca has industrial facilities in Chivacoa, Yaracuy state, warehouses in Miranda state, as well as an office on the 11th floor of Tower B of the Galipán Business Center, in El Rosal, Caracas, where the Global Construction Fund was located. The other floor, the fourth, which for years occupied the company dedicated to the construction of prefabricated homesToday it remains empty and is part of the “ruins” left by Alex Saab.
Goodbye to luxury
Also in the Chacao municipality, but in the sought-after Altamira urbanization in the northeast of the Venezuelan capital, on San Juan Bosco Avenue and very close to the San Juan Bosco school and church, a two-story building that seemed intended to serve as housing remained unfinished. He belonged to Alex Saab's circle. Today on the façade you can see a faded Dgcim sign, but no official from that police force guards the property.
In the same Altamira urbanization, but on the tenth avenue, the boutique Calle Dos Ojos was also part of the emporium built by the Colombian businessman. That store was controlled by Beatrice Fabri, Saab's sister-in-law, according to sources familiar with Saab's business dealings. It began operating in 2024 and offered clothing and accessories for ladies and gentlemen from luxury brands such as Burberry, Miu Miu or Yves Saint Lauren, among others.
Beatrice Fabri and her partner, Lorenzo Antonelli, also settled in Venezuela following the extradition of Alex Saab from Cape Verde to the United States in October 2021. Both were in the crosshairs of the Italian justice system, which accused them on charges of Criminal Conspiracy, Money Laundering and Fictitious Property Ownership. But that was a situation that Alex Saab would ultimately manage to resolve at the end of last year. Shortly before the unfortunate - for him - January 3, he reached an agreement with the Italian authorities by which he offered his mediation for the release of some citizens of that country arbitrarily detained by the Venezuelan regime.
The house that served as the store's headquarters has already been renamed Calle Dos Ojos. The last post on the business's Instagram account, @calledosojos, dates back to May 21, just six days after Alex Saab's “deportation” to the United States. The profile on that social network also mentioned Calle Dos Ojos Beach Club, an inn in Playa Guacuco, on the east coast of Margarita Island.
That business, which advertised itself as an “exclusive beach club”, was raided by officials of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin, the regime's political police) on May 23, a week after Alex Saab was handed over to US justice. His social networks were frozen on May 15, the eve of Saab's deportation. “According to information from residents of the area, this establishment is owned by Alex Saab and his children”, he noted The Pitazo on May 23.
In the southeast of Caracas, on Route C of the Los Campitos urbanization of the Baruta Municipality, Alex Saab owned two country houses that his trusted people, in code mode, called Jupiter and The Bunker. In the first lived Saab with Camilla Fabri and her two minor daughters, while in the second lived the adult children, born from Saab's first marriage to his compatriot Cynthia Certain Ospina. “As in these cases, those properties are already in the hands of other people”, said a source familiar with the status of both properties, who requested the reservation of his name.
The inventory of luxury properties, now abandoned or in the hands of security forces, includes three aircraft, with license plates YV3470, YV644T and YV3245. The latter is a Bombardier Global 5000 model, which is located at Maiquetía airport. Meanwhile, the first two are at Valencia airport, Carabobo state. The three aircraft are registered to a company linked to mining operations in Venezuela.
None of these assets are among the $195 million that Alex Saab has already agreed to hand over to US authorities. But, in almost any scenario that can be foreseen today, he will not be able to continue enjoying them either.
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