Alex Saab

The ban was denounced by the Venezuelan National Press Workers' Union (SNTP). Since the publication of reports on Alex Saab, the Armando.info site has suffered massive cyber attacks, warning that the ban on mentioning the Entrepreneur in successive research works "increases the threat". Roberto Deniz rejected the measure, recalling that after the publications the journalistic team had previously been threatened via Twitter, they were banned from leaving the country by the 11th Court in Caracas and now they were forbidden to continue Saab's investigation. Denouncing that according to "the logic of the judge that takes Alex Saab’s lawsuit against journalists from Armando.info, Alex Saab’s “honor” and “reputation” are above the possibility that Venezuelans know the business behind of CLAP." The four journalists were sued by Saab for continuous aggravated defamation and slander aggravated in Caracas.

On 8 May 2019, the Colombian prosecutors office charged Saab with crimes of money laundering, a concert to commit crimes, illicit enrichment, exports and fictitious imports and an aggravated fraud for events related to his Shatex company. Since September 2018, he is considered a fugitive in Colombia for failing to attend any judicial proceeding even with a firm arrest warrant.

On 25 July 2019, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida charged Saab and another Colombian businessman with money laundering related to a 2011-15 scheme to pay bribes to take advantage of Venezuela's government-set exchange rate.

On 25 July 2019, the United States Department of Treasury imposed sanctions on 10 people and 13 companies (from Colombia, Hong Kong (China), Mexico, Panama, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the U.S.) in a Venezuelan food subsidy called "CLAP", which includes President Nicolas Maduro stepsons and Saab himself. According to a statement by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, "The corruption network that operates the CLAP program has allowed Maduro and his family members to steal from the Venezuelan people.  They use food as a form of social control, to reward political supporters and punish opponents, all the while pocketing hundreds of millions of dollars through a number of fraudulent schemes."

As of October 2018, he is being investigated by Colombian authorities for alleged money laundering, due to his relationship with the Venezuelan government between 2004 and 2011. During the course of these investigations, his fiscal and accounting reviewer have been arrested and charged by the prosecutors office.

On 11 September 2018, the National Commission of Telecommunications (CONATEL) of Venezuela banned the publication of information about Alex Saab to the journalists of the Armando.info web portal, who have published research papers in which they point to Saab as an alleged member of acts of corruption that would exist around the business and distribution of food for the CLAP. In the document that is addressed to the journalist Roberto Deniz and signed by the general director of CONATEL, Vianey Miguel Rojas "prohibits citizens Roberto Denis Machín, Joseph Poliszuk, Ewal Carlos Sharfenderg and Alfredo José Meza publish and disseminate through the digital media specifically on the site Armando.info, mentions that go against the honor and reputation of the citizen Alex Naím Saab (...) until the end of the present process in the case that is being pursued against the aforementioned citizens".

On 23 September 2018, one of Saab's lawyers filed a complaint with the prosecution for attempted extortion of “part of an alleged public official, who is providing confidential information about investigative proceedings against the Saab family using WhatsApp and Telegram messages, in exchange for some economic or labor purpose.” On 12 October, Eddie Andrés Pinto, a patrolman of the DIJIN who served as an interception analyst, accepted the extortion charges that were imputed to him. According to the complaint in the audios and WhatsApp captures provided therein, Pinto requested COP500 million in exchange for erasing all the information that existed on behalf of Saab, also stating that there was nothing that compromised the businessman or his family, but that they were going to be captured as a measure of pressure.

Saab has sold food to Venezuela for more than US$200 million in a negotiation signed by President Nicolás Maduro through a registered company in Hong Kong, China. On 23 August 2017, the Venezuelan attorney general, Luisa Ortega Díaz, named Alex Saab as the owner of the Mexican firm Group Grand Limited, 26 along with Colombian businessmen Álvaro Pulido and Rofolfo Reyes, "presumably President Nicolás Maduro" and dedicated to selling food to the CLAP. Saab would have met Álvaro Pulido in 2012, when he was dedicated to supplying the Saab company, but this activity would have stopped doing it in 2014.

Saab was also enriched due to the materials supplier business of the Housing Mission in Venezuela. On 28 November 2011, the Colombian-Venezuelan agreement of the Global Construction Fund was signed, whose legal representative was Saab, which resulted in a contract of US$685 million for the construction of prefabricated homes in Venezuela, while the organization was being investigated by the Ecuadorian government for alleged money laundering through false exports to Venezuela. The event was attended by presidents Juan Manuel Santos and Hugo Chávez, as was the then Foreign Minister Nicolás Maduro. Saab's lawyer, Abelardo De La Espriella, assured La W Radio at the time that the headquarters of the Global Construction Fund in Ecuador had no connection with the Colombian businessman.

Alex Nain Saab Morán (born 21 December 1971) is a Colombian businessman involved in the filtration of Panama Papers, who has been mentioned in journalistic investigations for conducting successful businesses with an estimated amount of US$135 million with the Venezuelan government, unlike other Colombian businessmen who had to stop exporting to Venezuela, due to uncertainty regarding the payments and currency controls.