Nicolás Maduro ally is charged in Venezuela bribery case after deportation to U.S.

A close ally of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was charged Monday with bribing top officials to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from lucrative contracts to import food at a time of widespread hardship in the South American country.

MIAMI — A close ally of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was charged Monday with bribing top officials to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from lucrative contracts to import food at a time of widespread hardship in the South American country.

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Alex Saab made his initial court appearance after being deported over the weekend by acting President Delcy Rodríguez as part of a purge of insider businessmen who are believed to have enriched themselves through corrupt dealings with Maduro.

Shackled and wearing a beige prison uniform, Saab answered “Yes, ma’am,” in English after being asked by a federal judge in Miami whether he understood the charges against him: a single count of money laundering tied to a decade-old conspiracy to create fake companies, falsify shipping records and skim from government contracts to import food from Colombia and Mexico.