President’s security chief accused of facilitating passport forgery

First modification: 09/30/2022 – 01:38

On Sunday, September 25, the Uruguayan president returned to Montevideo after a leave abroad. At the airport in the Uruguayan capital, the president learned that the Chief of Police Intelligence was waiting for him to arrest the person in charge of his and his family’s security at the presidential residence.

Alejandro Andrés Astesiano Severgnini is accused of facilitating the obtaining of false documents and birth certificates for Russian citizens. According to the investigations of the Prosecutor’s Office, this action would have been happening since 2019.

The report of the investigation carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office was published by Bloomberg line, and notes that Astesiano even held meetings related to this activity in the Executive Tower, the official seat of government in Montevideo. In addition, he offered exclusive contacts with high government officials, whose names have not yet been revealed.

The day after the arrest, President Lacalle Pou, at a press conference, was “surprised” by the arrest warrant. He claimed that Astesiano did not have a criminal record and that he had known his family for several decades. He insisted on his professional quality and on the ignorance of Astesiano’s judicial record revealed by the media.

A plot that would have facilitated “hundreds or thousands” of Uruguayan passports

The prosecutor in the case, Gabriela Fossati, quoted by ‘The country‘ of Uruguay, specified that the investigations are still in an initial stage, in which it is sought to determine how many cases of falsification would have occurred, but assured: “They had several modalities. There are tens, hundreds or thousands.”

International alerts regarding the falsification of documents were lit in 2019, when the Prosecutor’s Office found the falsification of some birth certificates. However, this case was terminated. But from Mexico, the Prosecutor’s Office received an alert with more details about cases of passport forgeries, according to the aforementioned Uruguayan newspaper.

Like Alejandro Astesiano, two other Uruguayan citizens and three Russian citizens are formally linked to the investigation. One of them, detailed by the newspaper ‘El País’ of Spain. One of these, Alexey Slivaev, managed a Facebook page’All about immigration to Uruguay‘ (disabled at the time of publishing this article, active since 2015 and had 8,000 subscribers), through which it contacted potential clients and offered to obtain documents from deceased people.

Another of the defendants is Álvaro Fernández, who would have used his power as a Uruguayan notary public (or notary public) to advance contacts and generate birth certificates, with the support of public officials from the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of the Interior, according to confirmations obtained by ‘ El País’ (from Spain).

Alexander Astesian, a dossier challenged with privileged access

Since 2020, it was known from journalistic leaks that the head of security had notes for being involved in investigations of minor crimes.

The former head of security for the Uruguayan president does not have a formal criminal record, as confirmed by the Ministry of the Interior of that country. There are annotations for minor behaviors, which were revealed by the Uruguayan newspaper ‘El País’. According to this medium, the now accused would have been accused since 1996 for investigations in the case of theft and misappropriation. He also has other annotations between 2002 and 2005 for inquiries in similar cases.

In later years he has records for investigations in cases of theft, misappropriation and fraud. The Uruguayan president stated at a press conference on September 26 that he was unaware of these actions, as was the Ministry of the Interior.

For now, Astesiano will continue in preventive detention for 30 days.

With information from EFE and El País (Uruguay and Spain)