A Colombian fugitive accused of enriching himself off programs meant to supply food, medicine and housing to Venezuelans is now in U.S. custody. Alvaro Pulido Vargas, 62, was arrested in a Homeland Security Task Force operation and is scheduled to appear Tuesday, Oct. 13, in federal court in South Florida, the Justice Department announced.
Pulido Vargas, who has also gone by the name German Enrique Rubio Salas, faces two separate federal cases alleging he used the U.S. banking system to launder proceeds from bribery schemes connected to Nicolás Maduro’s government. He was first charged in 2019 and again in 2021.
“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. “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,” he wrote.
The $1.6 Billion Food Contract Scheme
The more recent case involves roughly $1.6 billion in Venezuelan government contracts to supply food and medicine through CLAP, a state-run distribution program. Prosecutors say Pulido Vargas and his associates paid bribes to secure the contracts, then inflated prices to cover the payoffs and pocket the difference. The scheme is alleged to have run from around July 2015 through at least 2020.
Four other people were charged alongside him, including his son, Emmanuel Enrique Rubio Gonzalez, and former Venezuelan state governor Jose Gregorio Vielma-Mora. Prosecutors say Vielma-Mora and a middleman collected approximately $17.3 million in bribes and illicit payments for steering government food contracts and other business advantages to the group.
Investigators allege the money passed through a network of shell companies and bank accounts in Antigua, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and other locations, with fake contracts used to disguise the payments. About $180 million of it moved through or into the United States, including accounts 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.
A Second Scheme Involving Housing Contracts
The earlier case, filed in 2019, accuses Pulido Vargas and Maduro ally Alex Nain Saab Moran of exploiting a government housing program for low-income Venezuelans by manipulating the country’s controlled currency exchange system.
Prosecutors say the men filed false paperwork claiming to have imported building materials that never actually reached Venezuela, then bribed officials to sign off on the fraudulent documents. They allegedly moved about $350 million out of Venezuela through U.S. banks into overseas accounts under their control, in a scheme running from around November 2011 through at least September 2015.
Pulido Vargas faces five money laundering-related charges in the 2021 case, each punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison, plus eight additional money laundering-related charges in the 2019 case. The Justice Department also noted he was previously convicted of drug trafficking in Italy in 1997 under the Rubio Salas alias.
The DEA, FBI and Homeland Security Investigations conducted the inquiries through the Homeland Security Task Force initiative. “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.
Blanche framed the arrest as a message to others under U.S. indictment abroad. “No amount of time or distance will stop the Justice Department from working with our federal law enforcement and international partners to pursue these criminals and bring them to justice in an American courtroom,” he wrote.
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