A consular investigation uncovered a scheme of irregular Mexican documents used by Cuban citizens in procedures abroad.
MADRID, Spain.- Mexican authorities dismantled a network dedicated to the issuance of false birth certificates that were used by Cubans to carry out consular procedures as if they were Mexican citizens. The case originated after an urgent communication sent by the Consulate General of Mexico in Houston to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SRE), dated January 22, 2026.
Between January 15 and 21, several applicants were detected presenting certificates supposedly issued by Civil Registry offices in Mexico. Although the documents appeared in official systems and had a certified Unique Population Registry Code (CURP), they lacked essential elements for their legal validity, such as the marginal annotation of birth registration and the corresponding certificate number.
During the consular interviews, the people involved acknowledged having born in Cuba and have no ties with Mexico. They also admitted that the documents were obtained fraudulently through an intermediary based in Tapachula, Chiapas, who was in charge of managing and sending Mexican birth certificates to be used in procedures before consulates and embassies.
The Consulate in Houston identified at least five cases with similar characteristics: three records from the state of Aguascalientes, one from Nayarit and one from Puebla. Likewise, similar situations were reported in the Mexican Embassy in Costa Rica, which led the SRE to alert all its representations abroad about the possible expansion of the scheme and to reinforce controls in the documentary verification processes.
According to information published by the mexican pressthe Attorney General’s Office of the State of Chiapas opened an investigation after an internal audit of the Civil Registry, which detected irregularities in municipalities such as Tapachula, Motozintla and Comitán. As a result, three officials allegedly involved in the illegal issuance of minutes were arrested, accused of abuse of authority, criminal association and illicit access to computer systems.
