Fugitive Linked to Maduro Arrested in U.S. Corruption Probe

Clear Facts

• Alvaro Pulido Vargas, 62, was arrested by a Homeland Security Task Force and will appear in federal court in South Florida.
• He faces charges in two cases alleging he used U.S. banks to launder money from Venezuelan government bribery schemes.
• The schemes involved contracts for food, medicine, and housing programs that prosecutors say were exploited for personal gain.

Alvaro Pulido Vargas, a Colombian national also known as German Enrique Rubio Salas, was taken into custody during a Homeland Security Task Force operation. He is scheduled to appear Tuesday, Oct. 13, in federal court in South Florida.

The Justice Department says Pulido Vargas helped funnel money from Venezuelan government bribery schemes through U.S. banks to hide illicit profits. The cases center on contracts tied to food, medicine, and housing programs.

Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said, “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.”

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the arrest and accused Pulido Vargas of exploiting programs meant to provide essential supplies and housing. “His alleged actions show a blatant disregard to the Venezuelan people by corrupting government programs intended to provide critical food, medicine, and housing for personal enrichment and exploiting the American financial system to do it,” Blanche wrote.

Pulido Vargas was charged in 2019 and again in 2021. He was previously convicted of drug trafficking in Italy in 1997 under his alias. The newer case involves about $1.6 billion in Venezuelan government contracts for food and medicine through the CLAP distribution program.

Prosecutors say Pulido Vargas and his associates paid bribes to win contracts, then inflated prices to cover the payoffs. The scheme allegedly ran from July 2015 through at least 2020. His son, Emmanuel Enrique Rubio Gonzalez, and former Venezuelan state governor Jose Gregorio Vielma-Mora were among four others charged.

U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones called the allegations a profound betrayal of the Venezuelan people. “The allegations describe a profound betrayal of the Venezuelan people; corrupting government programs intended to provide critical food, medicine, and housing for personal enrichment,” he said.

The earlier case centers on an alleged scheme to profit from a government program meant to build homes for low-income Venezuelans. Prosecutors charged Pulido Vargas and Maduro ally Alex Nain Saab Moran in 2019, accusing them of using a housing contract to exploit Venezuela’s government-controlled currency exchange system.

The men allegedly submitted false paperwork claiming they had imported goods and building materials that never entered Venezuela, then bribed officials to approve those documents. Prosecutors say they moved about $350 million out of Venezuela through U.S. banks and into overseas accounts they controlled.

Pulido Vargas faces five money laundering-related charges in the 2021 case, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. He faces eight additional money laundering-related charges in the 2019 case. The DEA, FBI, and Homeland Security Investigations are handling the cases through the Homeland Security Task Force initiative.

Blanche said the arrest serves as a warning to others facing U.S. prosecution. “No amount of time or distance will stop @TheJusticeDept from working with our federal law enforcement and international partners to pursue these criminals and bring them to justice in an American courtroom,” he wrote.

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