Pulido and other citizens were also charged for their alleged participation in a network that laundered money in the CLAP program.
The United States announced on Friday that it is offering up to $ 10 million for a Colombian businessman fugitive from justice and partner of Alex Saab, extradited days ago to Miami for money laundering and close to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“Today the State Department announced a reward of up to $ 10 million for information leading to the arrest and / or conviction of Álvaro Pulido Vargas, a Colombian citizen linked to the corrupt Maduro regime,” tweeted US diplomacy spokesman Ned Price .
The State Department said in a statement that this offer complements the announcement of a criminal indictment by the US prosecutor’s office against Pulido “for money laundering in connection with a foreign bribery scheme.”
On Thursday, the Justice Department reported that Pulido, 57, and two other Colombians and two Venezuelans were indicted by a grand jury from the Southern District of Florida. for his alleged participation in a network that laundered money from a program to supply food and medicine to Venezuela.
According to the October 7 indictment, Pulido and his accomplices paid bribes to obtain contracts with Venezuelan government entities to import and distribute boxes of food and medicine in Venezuela through the Local Supply and Production Committees (CLAP), a proprietary program. and state control.
They allegedly inflated costs and, between 2015 and 2020, conspired to launder the money obtained.
According to the accusation, the five defendants and their collaborators received about 1.6 billion dollars from the Venezuelan authorities and transferred about 180 million through or to the United States.
For this reason, Pulido, also called Germán Enrique Rubio Salas and nicknamed Cuchi, faces four counts of money laundering and one of conspiracy to launder funds, all associated with alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA for its acronym in Spanish). English).
Also accused of the same crimes were José Gregorio Vielma Mora, governor of the Venezuelan state of Táchira between 2013 and 2017, and Pulido’s son, Emmanuel Enrique Rubio González, 32, as well as the Colombian Carlos Rolando Lizcano Manrique, 50 years old. , and the Venezuelan Ana Guillermo Luis, 49.
If convicted, they each face a total maximum penalty of 100 years in prison.
Pulido was also indicted two years ago by a grand jury in the Southern District of Florida of eight counts of money laundering along with Saab, a Colombian arrested in June in Cape Verde and extradited on October 16 to Miami to answer for those crimes.
According to the indictment of July 25, 2019, Saab and Pulido obtained a contract with the Venezuelan government in November 2011 to build housing for low-income people, and they took advantage of the exchange rate controlled by the Venezuelan authorities to profit and implement a bribery scheme in violation of the FCPA.
Prosecutors allege that from November 2011 and at least until September 2015, Saab and Pulido used the US financial system to launder the illicit profits obtained, transferring 350 million Venezuelan dollars, through the United States, to accounts abroad. they owned or controlled.
For this accusation, Saab, 49, and accused by the Venezuelan opposition of being a front man for Maduro, appeared for the first time on Monday, October 18, before a judge in the Southern District of Florida. The next hearing in the case against Saab will take place on November 1.
“Justice will come to those who have plundered Venezuela and caused so much suffering to Venezuelans,” Carlos Vecchio, representative to the United States of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, celebrated on Twitter.
Washington, which does not know Maduro’s authority because it considers that it arises from fraudulent elections, considers Guaidó interim president of Venezuela. (I)
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