Homeland Security Task Force Arrests Alvaro Pulido Vargas to Face Charges in Multibillion-Dollar Venezuelan Money Laundering and Bribery Schemes

Note: A copy of the 2021 indictment can be found here and a copy of the 2019 indictment can be found here.

A Colombian national charged in two separate federal indictments involving the alleged laundering of more than $2 billion in connection with Venezuelan government bribery schemes will make his initial appearance on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 13, in the Southern District of Florida to face federal prosecution.

According to court documents, Alvaro Pulido Vargas, also known as “German Enrique Rubio Salas,” 62, of Colombia, was indicted in 2019 and again in 2021 for his alleged involvement in separate schemes to launder proceeds of bribery and fraud involving Venezuelan government officials of the Nicolás Maduro regime. Prior to these alleged offenses, Pulido Vargas had a prolific history of drug trafficking, including a 1997 conviction in Italy under the alias of German Enrique Rubio Salas.

“Alvaro Pulido Vargas is no longer a fugitive from justice,” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “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. The message to anyone who brings their foreign bribery or money laundering schemes inside our borders: the U.S. Justice Department will pursue these schemes and prosecute those who perpetrate them.”