Uruguay Investigating Ex-Presidential Guard Amid Claims Of Purported Espionage Found By Prosecutors

It's been two months since an investigation of alleged passport forgery involving the former security chief for Uruguay’s President started. Now more questions are popping up after a newspaper reported that prosecutors have found evidence of political spying and blackmail against opposition politicians.

Álvaro Delgado, Uruguay’s secretary of the Presidency, and the deputy secretary Rodrigo Ferrés testified Tuesday to prosecutors in the forgery investigation of Alejandro Astesiano. He headed security for President Luis Lacalle Pou, reported the Associated Press.

The Tuesday session came after 10 days of stories in La Diaria that outlined details on the purported espionage. The newspaper said that they are contained in a cellphone and other digital devices obtained by prosecutors in the forgery investigation. The information about the political spying turned up in an analysis of devices used by Astesiano. It was analyzed by prosecutor Gabriela Fossati’s office as part of the passport investigation, said the newspaper. The Washington Post reported that it said that the Prosecutor’s Office has not opened a separate probe into that issue.

La Diaria said that the political espionage allegedly included interceptions of telephone calls to people using spy software of the Ministry of the Interior and the selling of the information by the former Presidential guard. La Diaria said in a report that Astesiano allegedly sold state intelligence services to an Argentine soybean businessman. He allegedly accessed data involving a shipment of wheat and corn, according to My Northwest.

Astesiano and the firm that created the Interior Department’s Guardian spy software denied having access to it. The company, Vertical Skies, is a security consultancy that is run by many former Uruguayan military officers based in Montevideo, Miami and Buenos Aires. La Diaria said that the company asked Astesiano for personal information about Senator Charles Carrera and Senator Mario Bergara. They are both opponents of the government. According to the newspaper, the aim was to pressure the two senators into dropping a criminal complaint that they had filed against a decree. It would give a monopoly on operations in the port of Montevideo to the operator Katoen Natie until 2081.

On Tuesday, the two senators who allegedly were spied on also testified to prosecutors. They called on the Interior Ministry to provide accountability, with Carrera saying that the alleged operation had a “mafia character.”

As for Astesiano, he is in jail pending his trial for his alleged role in a criminal link that provided fake birth certificates for Russians so that they could get Uruguayan passports.