A notary public, a Uruguayan citizen of Russian origin who speaks little Spanish, and a Russian tourist. This was the composition of the gang that falsified passports, of which Alejandro Astesiano, head of presidential security, was a key part, according to the evidence gathered by the prosecution so far.
Everyone’s circumstances are different, as are their roles within the organization. But they had one thing in common: they led an expensive lifestyle riddled with unknowns. Both the Prosecutor’s Office and the Intelligence level are trying to determine how deep this plot was and who else participated in it —the prosecutor in the case, Gabriela Fossati, pointed out that she suspects two other public officials. For this, he based himself on one of the audios of the conversations between Astesiano and the clerk, in which the custodian tells him that “he has to call the director of MI (Ministry of the Interior) who is a friend who gives him a date but he has to enter with folder. She then adds: “I can’t convey to him that he was nervous because he takes them down. They don’t give an egg about money. Do you understand?
For that, the prosecutor tries to delve into the past movements of Alexey Slivaev, Roman Karpov, Álvaro Fernández and Astesiano.
The presidential custodian had 35 annotations and a prison sentence for fraud reported by El Observador. He worked for different political figures, including Sergio Abreu, Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera and his son, President Luis Lacalle Pou.
As El Observador learned, they charged US$10,000 for each false document.
alexey slivaev
He is a Russian citizen who moved from that country to Uruguay in 2008 with his children and wife. Since then, he settled in the Buceo neighborhood and, in his rustic Spanish —which during his first years in Uruguay was almost non-existent—, he was evasive when he had to explain what he was doing: odd jobs, different trades and even a false entrepreneurship. for which he brought Russian tourists to visit Uruguay.
Despite the doubts that he generated in his acquaintances, he led an expensive lifestyle and traveled to his native country for long periods of time —one or two months—, a couple of times a year. It was not his only destination: he also made at least one trip to Mexico, which was detected by the prosecution as irregular.
In fact, the case was triggered in Mexico when a Russian went to the consulate and said he was the son of a Uruguayan. Police intelligence officials located this man, since the birth certificate said that he had three children but he recognized under the record that he had only one, although he also admitted that he “signed papers” to the notary public Fernández “ignoring the content.” “From the file it appears that in order to carry out the procedure, he was accompanied by Mr. Slivaev,” argued one of Fossati’s associates.
This man – later it became known in the prosecution investigation – has a Facebook group in which there are almost 8,000 Russians and it is called “All about immigration to Uruguay”, where he got the people who needed to process the documentation.
Upon receiving the information, two hierarchs of the National Directorate of Civil Identification (DNIC) prepared a series of reports to their superiors and denounced the situation in the Prosecutor’s Office. This made it possible to detect that there was a charge for managing to obtain Uruguayan documents.
Alexey Slivaev intervened as a translator and manager: he got the clients and agreed on the amounts that he would later share with the notary public Fernández.
Roman Karpov
Karpov had arrived in Uruguay a week before being arrested. He left Saint Petersburg (Russia) recently operated and for this reason he had to be treated at the Maciel Hospital. He presented with pain and a high fever.
When asked what he was doing, he replied that he had a company in Russia related to the audiovisual sector.
He stayed in a modern downtown hotel, where he had no unusual movements that would attract attention. Although on Tuesday the 21st, when he went to the DNIC to get his ID, the officers observed some irregularities in his birth certificate that made them suspect that it was false.
Karpov also did not speak a word of Spanish and was with a 20-year-old Russian woman who acted as a translator. His document said that he was the grandson of Uruguayan Alexis Montes, who died in March 1991, but the police managed to contact Montes’ children, who said they had no Russian siblings or relatives.
Later, before the Prosecutor’s Office, he acknowledged that he paid the Russian woman US$100 for this task and that she was the daughter of a woman – also Russian – with whom she had contacted through social networks to do some paperwork for her.
He was charged, without imprisonment, for a crime of using a document with a false certificate with a crime of assumption of marital status. The women are still under investigation.
Alvaro Fernandez
The notary public lived in one of the most charming areas of Punta del Este, on Mansa Beach, as he declared in court when he was arrested. Professionally, he had at least two disqualifications from enrollment, imposed by the Supreme Court of Justice. One from 2005 and one from 2022.
It was with him that Astesiano had compromising messages that, according to prosecutor Fossati, he deleted before being arrested. “It is not known whether or not he was aware of the investigation, all measures were exhausted to keep it secret, but we all know, those of us in the system, that sometimes efforts are not enough to achieve the situation,” he said. Fossati in the audience.
Fernández managed the games, indicated the steps to follow and acted as manager in the criminal maneuver. he
