A Spanish police spokesman says a former deputy Venezuelan energy minister has been arrested on a U.S. warrant for alleged involvement in major bribery scheme involving Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA.

A Civil Guard spokesman tells The Associated Press that Nervis Villalobos was arrested Thursday in Madrid by a police unit specialized in money laundering crimes on an indictment from U.S. federal prosecutors. The spokesman says former Venezuelan electric company official Luis Carlos de Leon also was detained, along with a former executive at PDVSA's procurement unit. The official wasn't authorized to be named and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Villalobos would be the first senior ex-official detained as part of a wide-ranging U.S. probe into corruption at PDVSA that has already led 10 businessmen to plead guilty.