The ex-custodian of President Luis Lacalle Pou, Alejandro Astesiano, continues to give something to talk about since he was arrested for allegedly leading a large network of sale of false passports, which also operated from the Executive Tower.
In the last hours it transpired that Astesiano was a member of the National Party, since in 1999 he joined the list of Lacalle Pou’s father, former president Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera, who tried to come back to office.
Additionally, Lacalle Herrera held the first place to integrate the National Deliberative Body, an internal process of the PN. On the list, Astesiano appears in 19th place, as published by MVD Noticias, exposing archived documents and available on the website of the Electoral Court.
Internal elections were held on April 25, 1999, and in List 2 there appeared a total of 202 candidates to integrate the Organ for the period 1999-2004.
By then, Astesiano already had at least 3 police inquiries, according to his records.
Lacalle Herrera ended up winning those elections over his strongest competitor, Juan Andrés Ramírez, who had been his own Minister of the Interior between 1990 and 1993, and who later turned against him, denouncing a large number of acts of corruption during Lacalle’s presidency. .
Threads that get tangled up with each other
Alejandro Astesiano has been the head of custody of Luis Lacalle Pou until he was arrested weeks ago after returning from a trip abroad. According to the indictment, he would be in charge of a document forgery network to grant irregular passports to citizens of Russian nationality.
Two of his alleged accomplices, a man and a woman of Russian nationality, entered the country with the authorization of the Secretary of the Presidency, Álvaro Delgado, who later married each other in a supermarket in Chuy, owned by a relative of Mayor Eduardo Calabuig. (Colorado Party), who officiated the ceremony.
President Lacalle Pou has fallen into contradictions since the mega corruption case broke out, first stating that Astesiano did not have a criminal record, then changing the version assuring that he did but that he did not know, and many more statements in which he has tried to detach himself from who has been, for years, one of his closest collaborators on security issues.
