This Tuesday the Prosecutor’s Office confirmed the accusation of Alexander Astesianwho was head of the custody of the president Luis Lacalle Poufor him continued crime of assumption of marital status in real reiteration with crime of association to commit a crime and influence peddlingafter his participation was verified in a group that falsified documents to Russians so that they could obtain a Uruguayan passport.
The organization doctored documents to pass off Russian citizens as natural Uruguayan citizens and thus obtain a passport. According to seized audios that are part of the evidence of the prosecution, the custodian used his office in Torre Ejecutiva for meetings for their illicit business.
The modus operandi It was as follows: first they contacted the Russians, then they adulterated their birth certificates so that they appeared as Uruguayan “natural citizens” and finally they accompanied them in the process of issuing their identity card and passport.
The first complaint about these passports dates from 2019, but at that time the case was filed. In 2021a complaint made by Soumex (Association of Russian Compatriots in Mexico) to the Uruguayan consulate about several Russian citizens with fake Uruguayan passports who wanted to enter Mexico reopened the case.
Together with Astesiano, who was separated from his position after being charged, the Russian citizen worked alexey slivaev and the Uruguayan notary Alvaro Fernandez. The arrest of another Russian citizen, named Roman Karpov, helped uncover the operation.
Astesian, the manager
The President’s Custodian provided contacts with public officials located in strategic positions that They organized the procedures. This in particular in the Ministries of the Interior and Foreign Relations.
This Tuesday, when he asked that the accusation fall on Astesiano, the prosecutor in charge of the case, Gabriela Fossati, indicated that he offered real or “simulated” “contacts” with public officials located in strategic positions. These “contacts” organized the paperwork for Russian citizens.
The president’s custodian exchanged information with the Russians via WhatsApp and his contacts were the ones who “they organized the processing”. They talked about times when they were summoned and told them what they had to “put” in the documents.
“You don’t know how they are working, seriously I tell you, we went to the house of the other who has the computer that they worked on when they were in a pandemic with all the accesses, the crazy people working there, I don’t really tell you, they want to give me this if they can do it that is worth a fortune, almost 50 lucas are doing it with that to see if they can do it that’s why I tell you “said the custodian in one of the audios that were leaked and are part of the investigation.
Slivaev, the nexus
Soumex’s complaint marked as a central piece Alexey Slivaev, a Russian citizen residing in Uruguay since 2008.
It has a Facebook group –since 2014– in which there are almost 8 thousand Russians and it’s called “All about immigration to Uruguay” where I got the people who needed to process the documentation.
I officiated as a translator and manager: I got the clients and agreed on the amounts which he would later share with the notary public Fernández.
Fernandez, the scribe
The Uruguayan notary Álvaro Fernández managed the false birth certificates that were later used to process the Uruguayan documents, indicated the steps to follow and acted as manager of the operation.
According to the testimonies, Fernández was also in charge of receive and manage the money of the operation. A Russian citizen who was found to have an apocryphal passport He acknowledged having paid the clerk US$10,000 for the processing of his documents.
In one of Astesiano’s leaked communications, he wrote to Fernández about money issues: “I’m trying to get the three lucas that I’m missing, I already have to pay those eight, I’m missing three, and we’re going to make the document and I myself, I’m going to hand it over to him and I’m going to tell him, come here, I have something for you and I want to hand it over to the crazy man, right? The only thing missing is that I have to see how I can get it, I already got five and I’m going to put them, and after that if you later have to garpar it, because I get the money from somewhere else”.
Karpov, the prisoner
On Wednesday, September 21, Roman Karpov, a 46-year-old Russian who had arrived seven days earlier, was arrested while trying to get the ID in Montevideowhen officials from the National Directorate of Civil Identification (DNIC) detected some irregularities in his birth certificate that made them suspect that it was false.
His document said that he was the grandson of the Uruguayan Alexis Monteswho died in March 1991, but the police managed to contact the children of Montes, who stated have no Russian siblings or relatives.
Karpov’s fall made it possible, in turn, to enable the arrest of Alexey Slivaev, who he wanted to go to the hotel where Karpov was staying to collect his documents. When he wanted to go to the room where the Russian had his suitcases, a cell phone and moneythe police asked for the data, but he refused to give them to them and left.
With Karpov detained, the Prosecutor’s Office requested on Thursday 22 arrest and search Slivaev’s home and the study of the notary public Fernandez. They seized cell phones, computers, 39 external hard drives, Russian birth certificates, identity cards, a seal, a purchase agreement and other documents that are still under analysis.
The involvement of the president’s chief of security was detected from the telephone conversations of the imputed notary public. They had 77 pages of chats and audios with Alejandro Astesiano since August 2021.
