Adrián Moreira, the man running a scam posing as a son of desaparecidos

He led a gang that forged evidence to collect compensation intended for victims of Argentina’s last dictatorship

When Agustín Cetrángolo, a member of HIJOS — the movement that groups children of desaparecidos, people who were kidnapped during the last dictatorship — met Adrián Martínez Moreira, there wasn’t much about the short, skinny guy that stood out to him. They met in June 2011 at a human rights event at the ESMA, the biggest clandestine detention and torture center operated by the military during the dictatorship that stretched from 1976 to 1983.

“We’re from HIJOS Paraguay, we want to participate,” said Adrián, who was with other four people. Adrián introduced himself as a lawyer, sociologist, and son of desaparecidos. He claimed to have been born in 1986 in Misiones, the son of Paraguayan parents who were kidnapped in 1988 by Alfredo Stroessner’s police.

The group had flags, a big folder with information that they had allegedly been investigating, and an eagerness to be part of the human rights movement in Argentina. A comrade of Cetrángolo, who saw the situation from afar, politely asked them to go away. Something about the situation didn’t feel right, and she thought it best to avert any possible connections with Moreira. 

As it turns out, her suspicions were dead on. According to a years-long investigation, Martínez Moreira is not a lawyer, a sociologist, nor a son of desaparecidos. Adrián Martínez Moreira is not even his real name.

On June 28, Buenos Aires City’s Federal Courthouse #5 indicted Martínez Moreira and four others for running a criminal organization devoted to forging evidence and presenting false testimony in trials for crimes against humanity committed during the last dictatorship, in order to collect compensation intended for victims of human rights violations committed during the last dictatorship.

Moreira’s crimes were possible due to the fact that Argentina is still judging crimes against humanity committed by the dictatorship. As of today, 323 trials have been completed, and there are fifteen procedures still underway.

“He doesn’t improvise, he is not crazy”

“It was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle,” Federico Efrón, head of the Human Rights Secretariat’s Legal Matters Office, told the Herald. The Secretariat joined the case as a plaintiff in August 2021 as certain “patterns” started to emerge regarding legal investigations on crimes against humanity. “Two names came up — Adrián Martínez Moreira and a lawyer, Omar García. We started detecting the incorporation of false evidence.”

The investigation has established at least 62 acts of false testimony, fraud, and fraud against the public administration. Omar Enrique Ramón García, Leticia Concepción Gaete, Nicole Carolina Garrido Piris and Susana Claudia Feldman, were the four others indicted as members of the illicit association.

Moreira became close with members of HIJOS and other human rights organizations. His modus operandi for contaminating legal cases took on different forms, from trying to engineer deception on the stand to forgery.  

“The guy manipulated you into lying. A comrade of my dad was detained in 1976, and he and my sister took food for him. [Moreira] wanted my sister to testify that that comrade was his uncle,” said José Dabrowski, from the HIJOS branch in Lomas de Zamora. Moreira insisted, and even Drabowski’s sister doubted — was that person actually Moreira’s uncle? Inthe end she didn’t change her testimony after her brother implored her not to do so.

They also forged a lawyer’s signature, doctored legal documents, and gave false testimonies before the court. Moreira even filed lawsuits against Drabowski after being confronted over his lies.

“He told me that I was violent and that he would see me in court,” Dabrowski told the Herald. “Accused me of being a drug dealer, of killing and stealing…some of those accusations were only on social media, but he also made legal complaints against me.”

Moreira also got a judge to change his name. Moreira wasn’t born in 1986 but in 1993 as Ovidio Martínez. He was adopted by a couple that some time before had adopted his biological sister. Living with his new family, he was renamed Matías Ezequiel Lopez. Years later, Moreira allegedly forged a testimony by Adriana Calvo — a prominent human rights activist kidnapped during the dictatorship — to justify his name change.

“He thinks 25 hours per day. He studies, analyzes, and works until he achieves his goal. He doesn’t improvise, he is not crazy,” Dabrowski told the Herald.

According to Efrón, the case impacted the human rights movement, leading to fights among different members. Dabrowski, for example, has argued with members of his family, who defended Moreira.

“It’s very difficult to doubt someone who is saying ‘my dad disappeared,’” Efrón told the Herald. “It’s important to untangle this and bring it to light to safeguard the legitimacy of the memory, truth, and justice process in Argentina.”

For Cetrángolo, the persistent lack of precise knowledge of what happened during the dictatorship enabled Moreira and the others to act this way. “At the end of the day, it has to do with the lack of truth and justice.”

Martínez Moreira’s defense has already appealed the indictment, demanding the investigation be transferred to the Federal Court of Morón, and requesting the embargo against him be annulled.

“They are still free and using the same mechanisms,” Efrón told the Herald. “We need to stop them and keep investigating.”

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