Versión Español
Spanish – For the last four years, Alex Saab, Nicolás Maduro’s frontman, recently arrested in Cape Verde, reportedly made his son, Shadi Nain Saab, his trainee for all his crimes.
Saab not only made Shadi the legal representative of the Group Grand Limited company —sanctioned by the United States for being the means to launder money for Chavismo— but also involved him in crucial trips and confidential meetings of their criminal network.
Saab’s son is being investigated as part of the money laundering process involving the Chavista CLAP subsidized meal box program.
Shadi, a Colombian national, is a young Hollywood actor. According to the film portal IMDb, he appeared in action films such as All-Star Weekend directed and produced by Jamie Foxx and the short film King of LA.
But despite being an unknown and very young actor, Alex Saab’s son has led a luxurious life with expensive vehicles and real estate that do not match his poor acting resume.
Shadi was born in 1996. In 2015, at the age of 19, he appeared in his first feature film, and two years later, he was already traveling with his father to Mexico for confidential meetings to secure the “gold for food” money laundering scheme.
Group Grand Ltd. purchased food products that were sold at a premium to the dictatorship in Caracas. Thousands of tons of Mexican food were marketed in this way. According to Armando.info, a contract of over 200 million USD was awarded to the company at the end of last year.
Currently, Shadi Nain’s whereabouts are unknown because although he lived in the United States for many years, today, he is under investigation for his participation in the criminal network. It is presumed that he is in Venezuela under the protection of Maduro’s regime.
The young actor would also have become the key player for his father because while Alex Saab did not have a visa to travel to the United States, Shadi did indeed have the document. He could be the criminal network’s agent on American soil.
The children: frontmen of the frontman
Joseph Humire, a specialist in international security and executive director of the Center for a Free and Secure Society, who has been following the case of Alex Saab, explained to the PanAm Post that Shadi would be the frontman for his father, who is also the frontman for the Chavista regime.
“I think Alex Saab was training Shadi to follow in his footsteps, to be a financial architect of his criminal network,” Humire explained.
Humire recounted that in many of the trips that Saab made between Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela, Shadi was present following in his father’s footsteps.
“In 2017, he traveled at least four times to Mexico to participate in confidential meetings,” he said.
Humire told the PanAm Post that another frontman for the criminal network would be Emmanuel Enrique Rubio González, stepson of Álvaro Pulido Vargas, partner of Alex Saab. Rubio also appears as the administrator of the Group Grand Ltd. branch in Mexico.
An extensive document from the Treasury Department mentions Emmanuel Enrique Rubio González and Shadi Saab, both of whom are linked in the corruption network abusing the CLAP program, with the company Group Grand Ltd. SA, “which facilitated the shipment of non-perishable food from Mexico to Venezuela.”
“Pulido’s son lived in Miami for a while and had real estate companies that sold luxury apartments,” he said.
“They led a life of luxury that was more costly than what they should afford according to their profession; one is an actor, and the other is a sportsman,” he pointed out.
It remains to be seen whether there will be a secret trial in the United States against the sons of the main frontmen of Maduro’s regime.
