If you don’t follow Venezuelan news, you probably haven’t heard the name Alex Saab. The story of his business empire as President Nicolás Maduro’s financial operator is essential to understanding corruption, abuse of power, and the humanitarian emergency in Venezuela. However, Alex Saab is also an excellent example to understand government disinformation and the dynamics behind Maduro’s propaganda machine, which include attacks and persecution against journalists and the blocking of digital media. Alex Saab is a Colombian businessman. His first public and political appearance in Venezuela was in 2011, signing a commercial document between the Juan Manuel Santos and Hugo Chavez administrations. Saab has been involved in corruption schemes in housing projects and Venezuela’s government food program for impoverished communities during the humanitarian emergency that began in 2014 and is currently ongoing. Saab was arrested in Cape Verde, Africa, on June 13, 2020, and was accused of being a financial figurehead for Nicolás Maduro and of laundering millions of dollars through the Venezuelan exchange control system. He was then extradited to the U.S., despite Maduro’s efforts to avoid it. In a turn of events, in February 2022, it emerged that Saab had been working undercover for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) since 2018. In 2015, investigative digital media Armando.info was the first to uncover Saab’s corruption scheme with the government housing project Gran Misión Vivienda from 2012 to 2013. The outlet reported how Saab received $159 million USD, but only delivered $3 million USD worth of construction (that’s 4 out of every 100 promised houses). That year, his name was also found in the Panama Papers deviating funds to buy houses in Panama. In 2017, Saab reinvented himself and started selling food for CLAP (Local Supply and Production Committees), a program that sells subsidised food boxes to impoverished communities aimed at reaching 7 million families and reducing food insecurity amidst the humanitarian emergency. The food Saab sold to the government was overpriced and Maduro's government paid for it with preferential dollars — dollars given by the government at beneficial rates within the country's exchange control system. That year, digital media Armando.info also investigated the issue, and the team was sued directly by Saab and Nicolás Maduro. This was the beginning of a systematic attack against the digital media and the four journalists who led the corruption investigations: Roberto Deniz, Alfredo Meza, Ewald Scharfenberg, and Joseph Poliszuk. The legal action filed against them accuses them of “continued aggravated defamation.” The team was found guilty, had to flee the country under international protection, and was forbidden by CONATEL (The National Commision of Communications) to continue its investigations against the CLAP program, or even mention Saab’s name. Since 2017, Armando.info has been subjected to persistent internet blocking and digital attacks that aim to censor Venezuela’s most prestigious investigative journalism digital media. Amigos usuarios de @ArmandoInfo: Nuestro sitio está siendo objeto de un ataque electrónico masivo que lo mantiene básicamente bloqueado. En vista de ello, nuestros colegas de @la_patilla nos han hecho el favor de publicar COMPLETA nuestra nota de hoy. https://t.co/IiifJXBBq6 — Ewald Scharfenberg (@Ewalds6) March 3, 2019 User friends of @ArmandoInfo: Our site is currently the object of a massive electroinc attack that keeps it basically blocked. In view of this, our colleagues at @la_patilla have done us the favor of publishing our FULL note today. In 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Saab after assuring the public it had evidence of his corruption scheme through the CLAP program. That same year, the District Attorney for the Southern District of Florida indicted Saab and his partner Álvaro Pulido for money laundering more than 350 million USD through a bribe plan made with the Venezuelan government. Despite Maduro denying his financial relationship with Saab in 2017, Maduro’s government started an intense campaign after he was arrested and made stopping his extradition to the United States a priority. Streets in Caracas were flooded with graffiti asking for his liberation, allegedly paid for by the government. But the political and propaganda strategy was also fascinating. First, Maduro’s government tried to denounce his detention as a political arrest after the Venezuelan government quickly named him Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Venezuela to the African Union.