Allegedly Regarding The Procurement Of Illegal Passports For Russian Citizens, The Chief Of Personal Security Of The President Uruguay Was Arrested By The Police

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou gave a statement to reporters. (Wikimedia Commons/Palácio do Planalto)

JAKARTA - Uruguayan police arrested the head of the Uruguayan president's personal security department on Monday at the presidential residence, on suspicion of being involved in a scheme to help hundreds of Russian nationals obtain Uruguayan passports illegally.

Prosecutor Gabriela Fossati said late Monday that President Luis Lacalle Pou's head of security, Alejandro Astesiano, was being investigated for participating in a criminal network that produced fake Russian birth certificates, claiming Uruguayan parents.

The goal is for the Russian citizen to obtain a passport and other official identity documents, he said.

"We are talking about dozens of people, hundreds", Fossati said reported by Reuters on September 27.

According to police sources cited by local media, Astesiano used contacts that allowed him to process the necessary documentation to obtain passports for Russian citizens.

It is known that the number of Russian citizens who fled their country after Moscow invaded Ukraine on February 24, increased after President Vladimir Putin announced partial mobilization last Wednesday.

News of the arrest of Astesiano, who was detained shortly after returning to Uruguay from a trip with President Lacalle Pou and his sons, seems to have shaken the leader.

"I am as surprised as you are", President Lacalle Pou said at an impromptu news conference in the capital Montevideo.

"I'm sad", he added.

President Lacalle Pou promised that prosecutors and police working on the case would be independent. He denied other reports that Astesiano had a criminal record.