A Colombian-born businessman with close ties to ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro pleaded guilty ‌on Tuesday (September 15, 202^) in a U.S. corruption case, as federal prosecutors prepare separately to take Maduro to trial ‌next year.

Alex Saab entered the plea to one count of ‌money ⁠laundering conspiracy at a hearing before U.S. District Judge ⁠Kathleen Williams in Miami, court records show.

He also agreed to forfeit $195 million and cooperate with the U.S. Department of Justice. The court records did not ​reveal the nature of any investigations ‌where Saab might offer help.

Saab’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors said Saab stole millions of dollars from a welfare plan intended to help feed ‌needy Venezuelans, and transferred some proceeds to U.S. bank accounts.

He ​had pleaded not guilty in July, two months after being extradited as part of acting Venezuelan ⁠President Delcy Rodriguez’s attempt to shed parts of her predecessor’s government.

Saab served under Maduro as Venezuela’s minister of industry, before being removed by ‌Rodriguez in January soon after Maduro’s seizure by U.S. Special Forces in Caracas. Venezuela’s new government detained Saab the following month.

The U.S. criminal case is the second against Saab.

In 2020, he was detained in Cape Verde and extradited the following year to face money laundering charges for allegedly siphoning $350 million out ‌of Venezuela in connection with a bribery scheme.

Former U.S. President Joe Biden granted ​Saab clemency in December 2023, as part of a prisoner swap.

Maduro is being held without bail in ⁠a Brooklyn jail, after pleading not guilty to drug trafficking charges.

He ⁠has claimed immunity from U.S. prosecution because he once led a sovereign country. Legal experts have called this ‌an uphill battle, in part because Washington had not recognized Maduro as Venezuela’s president since 2019. Maduro’s trial is scheduled for ​June 1, 2027.

The White House has ordered U.S. military forces ​to focus almost exclusively on enforcing a “quarantine” of Venezuelan oil for at ‌least the next two months, a U.S. official told Reuters, indicating Washington is currently ​more interested in using economic rather than military means to pressure Caracas.

“While military options still exist, the focus is to first use economic pressure by enforcing sanctions to reach the outcome the White House is looking (for),” the official said on Wednesday (December 24, 2025), speaking on condition of anonymity.

While U.S. President Donald Trump has been publicly coy about his precise aims regarding Venezuela, he has privately pressured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to flee the nation, Reuters has reported. Mr. Trump said ​on Monday (December 22) it would be smart for Mr. Maduro to leave power.

“The efforts so ⁠far have put tremendous pressure on Maduro, and the belief is that by late January, Venezuela will be facing an economic calamity unless it agrees to make significant concessions to the U.S.,” the official said.

​Blatant foul: On Venezuela and U.S. aggression

U.S. seeking to seize the third vessel

Mr. Trump has accused the South ⁠American country of flooding the U.S. with drugs, and his administration has for months been bombing boats originating in South America that it alleges were carrying drugs. Many nations have condemned the attacks as extrajudicial killings.

Mr. Trump has also frequently threatened to start bombing drug infrastructure on ‌land, and has authorised covert Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) activity directed at Caracas.

So far this month, ‌the U.S. Coast Guard has intercepted two tankers in the Caribbean Sea, both fully loaded with Venezuelan crude. The comments by the White House official ‍on Wednesday (December 24) come after Reuters reported that the Coast Guard was waiting for additional forces to carry out a third seizure, first attempted on Sunday (December 21), against an empty sanctioned vessel known as the Bella-1.

Venezuela’s ‍U.N. Ambassador Samuel Moncada said on Tuesday (December 22), “The threat is not Venezuela. The threat is the U.S. government.”

Huge U.S. military presence in the Caribbean

The White House official did not elaborate on precisely what it meant for the military to focus “almost exclusively” on interdicting Venezuelan oil. The U.S. military’s footprint sprawls across the globe, and most missions and capabilities are unrelated to maritime interdiction.

The Pentagon has amassed a huge military presence in the Caribbean with more than 15,000 troops. That includes an aircraft carrier, 11 other warships and more than a dozen F-35 aircraft. While many assets can ⁠be used to help with enforcing sanctions, many others, like fighter jets, are not well-suited for that task.

On Tuesday (December 23), the United States told the United Nations ​it will impose and enforce sanctions “to the maximum extent” to deprive Mr. Maduro of resources.

Earlier this month Mr. Trump ⁠ordered a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela, but the White House official’s use instead of the word “quarantine” appears to echo language used during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the administration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy wanted to avoid an escalation. Robert McNamara, Kennedy’s defense secretary at the time, said in 2002: “We called ⁠it a quarantine because blockade is a word of war.”