The Public Ministry charged four crimes against Johangel Rafael Castillo Manrique, director of the Administrative Service for Migration and Immigration Identification (Saime), Zaraza office (Guárico), who is allegedly linked to a network that charged in dollars to issue passports, among other documents. There are three other officials detained, according to sources in the justice system.
The investigation into this alleged network was initiated by Saime himself. For this reason, last Tuesday, October 14, a commission from the General Inspectorate of Saime Services accompanied by agents from the Bolivarian National Police assigned to the Criminal Investigations Division (DIP) appeared at the headquarters of the aforementioned public establishment located in Zaraza, who undertook an inspection, the sources explained.
During the procedure, officials located an area equipped with a laptop connected to a private internet company. Said laptop does not belong to the set of assets assigned to Saime-Zaraza, according to the testimony collected by the acting agents.
The director of that Saime office told police officials that he did not know about the existence of that laptop or its origin. The team was subjected to experts and appointments were found to process passports, among others.
In the middle of the procedure, the officials asked the four detainees to hand over their respective cell phones, which, when the respective expertise was carried out, showed proof of mobile payments of different amounts, confirmation of appointments, a promise to provide appointment renewal forms, a chat where they request various procedures, among others.
Once the inspection was completed, the director of Saime-Zaraza, Castillo Manrique, as well as Liliana del Carmen Machado González, Ibelise Coromoto Díaz and Luis Antonio García were arrested.
These four Saime-Zaraza officials were later transferred to the 3rd Control Court of Guárico, Valle de la Pascua extension, where the Public Ministry, represented in the 8th National Full Prosecutor’s Office, charged them with the alleged commission of the crimes of: sabotage or damage to protected systems, irregular granting of identification documents, delay or omission of functions and association to commit a crime. These crimes are covered by the laws against Computer Crime, Against Corruption, Organic Identification and Organic Law against Organized Crime and Financing of Terrorism.
The control court accepted the accusation and decreed deprivation of liberty, setting the DIP-Valle de la Pascua headquarters as the place of confinement.
The municipal chamber of Zaraza released a video where the councilors can be seen expressing solidarity exclusively towards one of the four detainees; that is, Johangel Castillo, who served as director of Saime-Zaraza. The names of the other three detainees are not mentioned in the video.
The investigation remains open to determine the origin of the laptop located in Saime-Zaraza and since most of the parallel procedures were carried out, among other details.
