Massive and fraudulent registration of Venezuelans in Colombia would be a plan of the Maduro regime to affect the presidential elections of 2022

The National Registry, Migration and the Police set the alarms due to the significant increase in applications by Venezuelan citizens to obtain Colombian citizenship. The foregoing, according to government sources, would be a plan of the Nicolás Maduro regime to affect the next elections in Colombia, in 2022.

A government source says that there is a destabilization strategy where an operation is being found to massively register Venezuelans as Colombian citizens. This operation, according to information obtained by the investigative unit of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, was added to the increase in original Colombian identity cards fraudulently issued to all types of people.

From 2014 to early September 2020, 568,825 Venezuelans have registered in Colombia. Of this number, 379,334 are already eligible to vote in the country.

According to these data collected by El Tiempo, the Registry registered 22,147 Venezuelans registered in 2014; 41,530 in 2015, 66,966 in 2016 and nearly 94,000 records in 2017.

However, as 2018 arrived, the number shot up to 159,414 registrations and remained above 140,000 in 2019, where 142,208 were submitted. In 2020, despite the pandemic season, 42,586 cases were reported.

These records, according to the newspaper, “can be done by anyone”, since there is a rule that allows the undocumented person to get two witnesses that prove their birth in Colombia, this would be lent to illegal procedures, since people get false witnesses or ” some registrars put their fingerprints and sell the documents for two million pesos, ”the newspaper reported.

What the government says

The Registrar, on the other hand, canceled 1,609 fraudulent registrations from 2018 to date. However, the entity has among its data another 3,000 cases of fraud.

Among some of the beneficiaries of this type of illegal identities are a vallenato singer and a university professor from the Caribbean Coast, who are already in the sights of the Registrar’s Office.

In addition, the Government is evaluating an audit to establish how these civil registries were granted, which became authorized to vote in Colombia.

Although an official version of the specific case is not known, El Tiempo was able to establish that meetings are already being carried out by the Presidency, with the registrar Alexánder Vega; the prosecutor, Francisco Barbosa; the director of Migration Colombia, Juan Francisco Espinosa; the Director of the Police, General Óscar Atehortúa, and intelligence files.

More illegal registrations

In some audits of the Registry, 89 Arabs with Colombian identity were found. Apparently, the witnesses who attested that they had seen their birth lied so that they would have the records.

“The United States is on alert because among the Arabs there may be someone linked to terrorist groups and may jump to that country as a Colombian. His embassy has already had to cancel visas, “said an investigator.

According to data from El Tiempo, it is believed that for a registration kit, identity card, passport and visa they can request between 50 and 100 million pesos.