A Colombian national wanted for years in connection with a sprawling Venezuelan corruption scheme is now in federal custody and set to appear in a South Florida courtroom.
Alvaro Pulido Vargas, 62, was arrested during an operation led by a Homeland Security Task Force, the Justice Department announced. He is scheduled to appear Tuesday, Oct. 13, in federal court in South Florida.
Pulido Vargas faces two separate federal cases accusing him of laundering money tied to bribery schemes connected to Nicolás Maduro’s government, using the U.S. financial system — including bank accounts in South Florida — to hide illicit profits.
“Pulido is charged in two separate, significant money laundering schemes, both using the U.S. financial system to hide the profits from his bribery and greed off the backs of the Venezuelan people,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva.
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the arrest Sunday on X, saying Pulido Vargas exploited programs meant to provide Venezuelans with essential supplies and housing.
“His alleged actions show a blatant disregard to the Venezuelan people by corrupting government programs intended to provide critical food, medicine, and housing for personal enrichment and exploiting the American financial system to do it,” Blanche wrote.
Pulido Vargas, who also goes by the name German Enrique Rubio Salas, was charged in 2019 and again in 2021. The Justice Department said he was previously convicted of drug trafficking in Italy in 1997 under that alias.
“For years, DEA and our HSTF partners have pursued Pulido Vargas across borders. Today, that pursuit has brought him to the Southern District of Florida,” said DEA Administrator Terrance Cole.
The $1.6 billion contracts case
The more recent indictment centers on roughly $1.6 billion in Venezuelan government contracts to supply food and medicine through CLAP, a state-run distribution program.
Prosecutors allege Pulido Vargas and his associates paid bribes to win those contracts, then inflated prices to cover the payoffs and pocket the difference, in a scheme they say ran from roughly July 2015 through at least 2020.
His son, Emmanuel Enrique Rubio Gonzalez, and former Venezuelan state governor Jose Gregorio Vielma-Mora were among four others charged in the case. Prosecutors say Vielma-Mora and a middleman collected approximately $17.3 million in bribes and illicit payments for steering government food contracts and other advantages to the group.
The funds allegedly moved through a network of companies and bank accounts in Antigua, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and elsewhere, with the 2021 indictment describing fabricated contracts and paperwork used to disguise the payments. Prosecutors say approximately $180 million passed through or into the United States, including accounts here in South Florida.
“The allegations describe a profound betrayal of the Venezuelan people; corrupting government programs intended to provide critical food, medicine, and housing for personal enrichment,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones.
The housing contract case
The earlier, 2019 indictment accuses Pulido Vargas and Maduro ally Alex Nain Saab Moran of exploiting a government housing program for low-income Venezuelans by abusing the country’s controlled currency exchange system.
Prosecutors say the two submitted false paperwork claiming they had imported building materials that never actually reached Venezuela, then bribed officials to sign off on the fraudulent documents. The alleged scheme, which prosecutors say ran from roughly November 2011 through at least September 2015, moved approximately $350 million out of Venezuela through U.S. banks and into overseas accounts the men controlled.
Pulido Vargas faces five money laundering-related charges in the 2021 case, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, plus eight additional money laundering-related charges in the 2019 case.
The DEA, FBI and Homeland Security Investigations are investigating both cases as part of the Homeland Security Task Force initiative. Blanche pointed to the arrest as a warning to others facing U.S. prosecution.
