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Alex Saab, a close ally of ousted Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, is expected to plead guilty Tuesday in a federal case<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n MIAMI — <\/span>A close ally of ousted Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> is expected to plead guilty Tuesday in a federal case that accused him of bribing officials to win lucrative contracts to import food at a time of widespread hardship in the South American country.<\/p>\n Alex Saab is scheduled to appear before Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami on Tuesday for a change of plea hearing, according to court records. The details of the plea were not immediately made public and Saab\u2019s attorney, Neil Schuster, declined to comment.<\/p>\n Saab was deported in May by Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez in response to pressure from the United States, which has been investigating the Colombian-born businessman for more than a decade. He was charged with a single count of money laundering tied to an alleged conspiracy to create fake companies, falsify shipping records and skim from government contracts to import food from Colombia and Mexico.<\/p>\n Saab, 54, was previously charged during the first Trump administration in 2019 and then arrested during a refueling stop in Cape Verde on what the Venezuelan government described as a high-level humanitarian mission to Iran.<\/p>\n