Alvaro Pulido Vargas, 62, was arrested in a Homeland Security Task Force operation and is scheduled to appear in federal court in South Florida on Oct. 13, according to the Justice Department. He faces two criminal cases alleging that he helped move proceeds from Venezuelan government bribery schemes through U.S. financial institutions.
One case concerns contracts worth about $1.6 billion to provide food and medicine through Venezuela’s CLAP distribution program. Prosecutors allege Pulido Vargas and associates paid bribes to obtain contracts and inflated prices to disguise the payments and generate profits. The alleged conduct dates from about July 2015 through at least 2020. Prosecutors say about $180 million passed through or into the United States in connection with the case.
Pulido Vargas was charged in that case in 2021 alongside four others, including his son, Emmanuel Enrique Rubio Gonzalez, and former Venezuelan state governor Jose Gregorio Vielma-Mora. Prosecutors allege Vielma-Mora and a middleman received about $17.3 million in bribes and other illicit payments.
A separate case, filed in 2019, concerns an alleged scheme involving a Venezuelan housing program and the country’s government-controlled currency exchange system. Prosecutors accuse Pulido Vargas and Alex Nain Saab Moran of submitting false documents for goods and building materials that were not delivered, then bribing officials to approve the paperwork. They allege that about $350 million was transferred from Venezuela through U.S. banks to overseas accounts. The alleged scheme ran from about November 2011 through at least September 2015.
The Justice Department says Pulido Vargas faces five money-laundering-related counts in the 2021 case and eight in the 2019 case. Each of the five counts in the newer case carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, according to the department. The DEA, FBI and Homeland Security Investigations are involved in the investigations.
The allegations have not been proven in court. The Justice Department also said Pulido Vargas had previously been convicted of drug trafficking in Italy in 1997 under the name German Enrique Rubio Salas.
