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The Republican congresswoman from the state of Florida, María Elvira Salazar, reacted this Saturday to the return of Álex Saab to U.S. custody, describing the event as the collapse of the era of impunity for narco-dictators and their accomplices in the Americas.
Salazar published her message on X hours after Venezuela handed Saab over to U.S. authorities, and he was transferred from the El Helicoide prison, home to the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service (Sebin), in Caracas to Miami, where the Department of Justice was preparing for his entry into a federal prison.
"Back to where he should have never left: a federal prison in the United States," wrote Salazar.
The congresswoman pointed directly at former president Joe Biden (2021-2025), whom she accused of denying justice to the Venezuelan people.
"The frontman of the drug dictator Maduro will now face American justice, the same justice that Joe Biden denied the Venezuelan people when he decided to release him and return to the Chavista regime one of its main financial operators and accomplices of the corruption that plundered Venezuela," he emphasized.
Salazar concluded his publication with a strong statement. "The era of impunity for drug dictators, their frontmen, and their accomplices is collapsing in the Americas," he asserted.
In December 2023, Biden granted clemency to Saab and included him in a prisoner swap with Venezuela—facilitated by Qatar—in exchange for the release of 10 American citizens, a decision that was widely criticized by Republican lawmakers, especially the Cuban Americans from Florida.
After returning to Caracas, Saab remained connected to the Chavista apparatus until he was arrested again on February 4 in a joint operation between Sebin and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
His new delivery to Washington is set against the backdrop of the Venezuelan political landscape that emerged after the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, after which Delcy Rodríguez took office as interim president and began negotiations with the administration of President Donald Trump.
Saab was charged in the United States with eight counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering related to a scheme involving approximately $350 million tied to contracts with the Venezuelan government and the CLAP food program.
Anonymous sources cited by the newspaper The Miami Herald indicated that Saab "managed the money and would be in a position to detail how the funds were transferred through the international financial system," making his testimony a key piece for the criminal cases opened against Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in New York for drug trafficking and drug terrorism.
Salazar, one of the most critical voices of chavismo in the U.S. Congress, had previously described Maduro as the "head of the Cartel of the Suns and a narco-terrorist," and has been calling since August 2025 for an end to the impunity for the Venezuelan regime.
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