Jorge Martín, 19 May 2026
Late on 16 May, a brief statement from SAIME in Venezuela (the Administrative Service for Identification, Migration and Foreigners) announced the handover of Alex Saab – who until January had been a minister in the Venezuelan government – to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Well, not exactly. The SAIME statement did not mention which country he was being handed over to or who was going to pick him up. It merely stated that he had been deported (not extradited), and referred to Saab as a “Colombian citizen”. We will go into the technical details later, as they are important.
But first, it is worth noting that this decision by Delcy Rodríguez’s government has caused a huge stir amongst her own supporters and those of Maduro’s government in Venezuela and internationally.
This has led some who unconditionally defended the Venezuelan government up until now to declare that handing over Alex Saab is an act of betrayal. For many, this has been the turning point. Some are even publicly apologising for not having realised sooner that Delcy’s government is under US control. As they would say in Venezuela, the penny (la locha) has finally dropped for some.
Despite the cordial message, ‘comrade Saab’ did not take on any new responsibilities. In early February, there were strong rumours that he had been arrested and was to be handed over to the US. Official Venezuelan sources and those close to Saab himself denied that he had been arrested. We now know that he spent three months locked up in the infamous Helicoide detention facility, until he was finally handed over to DEA and FBI agents at Maiquetía airport on 16 May.
We can speculate on the reason for this delay. Were there negotiations between different factions within the government and the PSUV – between those who wanted to hand him over and those who were against it? Between those who stood to lose the most from Saab’s testimony in a US court and those who wanted to get rid of an ally of Maduro? Were they looking for a way to provide legal cover for his handover? Perhaps one day we will know the details.
Illegal handover?
The truth is that his handover is, at first glance, illegal. Alex Saab is a Venezuelan citizen. That was the main basis of the defence against his extradition from Cape Verde. If he were not a Venezuelan citizen, he could not have been a government minister, nor could he have voted in the 2024 elections, as he did. As such, he cannot be extradited to the US unless it is through an extradition trial. None has taken place.
It is for this reason that the SAIME statement refers to the deportation (an administrative procedure) of a Colombian citizen. Has his Venezuelan nationality been revoked?
Even if that were the case – and no document has been presented to support it – this would demonstrate the arbitrary nature of the decisions made by the judicial bodies in Venezuela, which are entirely subordinate to the executive, which in turn now serves US interests.
The SAIME statement also makes an incredible claim: that Saab “is implicated in the commission of various crimes in the US as is public knowledge, notorious and communicated”, thereby denying him the presumption of innocence. This is in direct contradiction to the fact that Maduro’s Venezuelan government (of which Delcy was a part) had spent years protesting Saab’s total and absolute innocence and after he himself pleaded not guilty in a US court.
The day after Alex Saab’s handover to US imperialism, both Diosdado Cabello and Delcy Rodríguez came out to publicly justify the decision. In an incredible statement, Diosdado claimed that Alex Saab had been using a fake Venezuelan identity card for many years (!!). What Diosdado failed to explain is how it is possible that Saab was appointed a Venezuelan diplomat, a Venezuelan minister, and voted in Venezuelan elections without anyone noticing his documents were fake.
Perhaps the most scandalous part of Diosdado’s speech is what he said at the end: “We subjected him to the law and he was deported there — to the US — because that was the last country from which he came to Venezuela. Let justice take its course.” Of course the US is the last country Saab came to Venezuela from… because the Venezuelan government, of which Diosdado was a part, negotiated his release with Biden!
Delcy Rodríguez did not go into so many technical details, but when asked she stated that “Alex Saab is a citizen of Colombian origin who held office in Venezuela”, adding that “any decision we have taken (since what happened on 3 January) has been in Venezuela’s interests”. Finally, she also said that this is a matter “between the US and Alex Saab”. She does not even bother to say that “what happened on 3 January” was that Trump ordered a military attack on Venezuela and kidnapped the president.
The truth is that the entire campaign in defence of Alex Saab when he was detained in Cape Verde and subsequently to secure his release was based on his status as a Venezuelan citizen. In addition to his Venezuelan identity card, Alex Saab held a standard Venezuelan passport and a Venezuelan diplomatic passport. His Venezuelan identity card appears in the official gazette in which Nicolás Maduro appoints him as Minister of Industry, and moreover his status as a Venezuelan is essential for that appointment (all documents are publicly available).
It is therefore not surprising that the handover of Alex Saab to imperialism has caused such a stir amongst supporters of the Venezuelan government, leading many to publicly break with Delcy. They join others who have been levelling harsh public criticism against Delcy’s government in recent months, including prominent figures in Venezuela such as Britto García and Mario Silva.
Subservience to US imperialism
It must be pointed out to all of them that although the handover of Saab is certainly serious and an outrageous sign of submission to imperialism, it is neither the first nor even the most significant such incident since 3 January.
Delcy’s government has obsequiously welcomed US officials who have come to Venezuela “to inspect the estate” and plunder its resources, including those directly responsible for the 3 January attack: the director of the CIA and the head of the Southern Command.
Delcy’s government has dismantled Chávez’s hydrocarbons and mining laws, handing over resources to multinationals on terms that are extremely favourable to them. Delcy’s government has denounced Iran in the war waged against it by the US.
The US controls Venezuelan oil sales and manages the proceeds, which are deposited in US accounts, all with the collaboration of the Venezuelan government. Delcy’s government has returned to the IMF and the World Bank and is now going to offer them guarantees of “the sustainability of public debt”.
In other words, Delcy’s government has been managing Venezuela’s neocolonial subjugation to the US since 3 January, not just for the past three days since the handover of Alex Saab.
As communists we were never friends of a businessman like Alex Saab, although we opposed his extradition to the US, given what that represents in terms of submission to imperialism. In the same way, back in 2011 we opposed the handover of Joaquín Pérez Becerra to Colombia, when Nicolás Maduro was Foreign Minister.
Saab’s handover to imperialism will undoubtedly be used in the trial against Maduro in the US. Saab is currently indicted for laundering money obtained illegally through the CLAP-subsidised food import and distribution programme. The US Department of Justice’s statement clearly states: “The DEA has been investigating alleged financial crimes and networks linked to Alex Saab and the former Maduro regime for some time.” The handover of Saab, as well as demonstrating Delcy’s submission to imperialism, is therefore a stab in the back against Nicolás Maduro.
Furthermore, it must be noted that the betrayal of Chavismo did not begin with Saab’s handover to the FBI and the DEA, nor did it begin on 3 January. It was a long process, steered by Maduro following Chávez’s death, and one of its most significant turning points was the 2018 package of monetarist austerity measures and the repressive measures against the labour movement and the left that were implemented as a result.
There is no need to look for a political motive behind this operation. For quite some years now, the internal struggles within the Venezuelan leadership have been little more than fights over fiefdoms of power (and personal enrichment) between different interest groups. Thus fell, one after another, Rafael Ramírez, Tarek el Aissami and so many others. Government leaders, from key sectors of the economy and political and military power, were suddenly accused of corruption, imprisoned or forced to flee abroad.
Maduro betrayed the Bolivarian revolution; Delcy ended up bowing down to US imperialism. But Delcy’s submission was possible because the Venezuelan government already had very little if anything at all to do with the Bolivarian revolution.
More Stories
The Cockroach Janta Party: Digital Rage Without Class Struggle
Enough is Enough: Catastrophe in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Global warming is heating rivers, endangering human food supplies