Narco Passport Scandal in Uruguay

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Issue Nov 01-07 2023: On November 1, 2023, Francisco Bustillo resigned as Uruguay’s Foreign Minister after recordings of a conversation he had in November 2022 with then Deputy-Foreign Minister Carolina Ache about drug trafficker Sebastián Marset (currently the subject of an international manhunt) went viral. The opposition had criticized the government for fast tracking a passport for Marset, who is a Uruguayan citizen, which allowed him to leave the United Arab Emirates in late 2021 where he was detained for traveling with a fake Paraguayan passport. The call strongly suggested that Bustillo tried to obstruct the investigation into the issuance of the passport. President Luis Lacalle Pou was on an official trip to the United States as the crisis irrupted and hurried back in the hopes of mitigating the fallout.

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