Three Migration employees arrested over fake residency records for Colombian doctors

A scheme allegedly allowed Colombian doctors to obtain permanent residency in Argentina without meeting the required conditions, using fake migration records created with help from employees inside the National Migration Directorate.

The Federal Police began investigating in June after the agency’s legal authorities detected forged records. Working under the Federal Investigations Department and a federal court in Lomas de Zamora, investigators identified three Migration employees who allegedly inserted fraudulent arrival forms into the system. They also found 101 Colombian citizens linked to the operation.

The alleged arrangement helped doctors maintain residency applications even when they had remained outside Argentina longer than immigration rules allowed. When an applicant’s absence was close to causing the procedure to lapse, members of the group allegedly demanded payment to make it appear that the person was still in Argentina.

Investigators said the group used identity cards left by the applicants and manipulated photographic biometric images taken from other people passing through Migration counters. Those records falsely suggested that the doctors had re-entered Argentina while they remained thousands of kilometers away.

A judge ordered 10 raids in the Buenos Aires neighborhoods of Floresta and Almagro and in Villa Ballester, Florencio Varela, Cuartel V, Moreno and La Tablada. Police arrested seven people, including two Argentine women, two Paraguayan women and three Argentine men. Prosecutors accuse them of violating public officials’ duties, bribery, ideological falsification, abuse of authority and destruction of evidence.

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of a fraudulent nature