Mathematics teacher Sandra Isabel Cárdenas says G. 34,112,616 was deducted from her salary in two collection cases based on the same promissory note, which she says she never signed. A resident of Caacupé, she maintains that she did not know the alleged creditors and discovered the lawsuits only when the garnishments began affecting her salary.
The first deduction took place in April 2021, for G. 1,439,527. The collection was filed in a Villa Elisa court by Juan Manuel Aponte Verón, with lawyer Alcides Ranulfo Estigarribia of EDA y Asociados acting in the case. After gaining access to the proceedings, Cárdenas says she identified a signature she did not recognize and incomplete fields on the document.
The first case led to deductions totaling G. 10,590,800. Later, according to the teacher’s account, another G. 11,136,146 was collected in interest. In July 2024, a new lawsuit was filed, this time by Juan Francisco Mendoza Romero and represented by lawyer Carlos González, again using the same promissory note. Monthly deductions of G. 1,794,000 continued until they reached another G. 10,590,800.
Cárdenas says she was never properly notified. In the second case, the address recorded on the promissory note appeared only as “Caacupé Centro.” Reports attributed to bailiff Marcelo Cabrera recorded alleged notifications received by someone who supposedly identified herself as the teacher’s daughter without giving her name. Judge Martha Beatriz Benítez accepted the records, and the case proceeded as though Cárdenas had refused to appear.
The collections affected her health and career. In 2023, she was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia and spent two months bedridden, unable to walk. “I was practically receiving absolutely nothing and working only for these people,” she said. She later left the classroom and took on an administrative position.
The teacher filed a complaint in September 2024 with the Villa Elisa office of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, headed by prosecutor Fany Aguilera, and reaffirmed it in December that year. According to her account, she was recently told that no investigative steps had been taken. Cárdenas also appealed to the Senate’s Promissory-Note Mafia Commission.
According to Cárdenas’s allegation, the case is linked to the scheme known in Paraguay as the “promissory-note mafia,” involving the judicial enforcement of allegedly falsified debt documents against multiple victims. Seven judges and former judges have been prosecuted in investigations related to the scheme, including Carmen Analía Cibils, Víctor Nilo Rodríguez, Nathalia Guadalupe Garcete, Lilian González de Bristot, Norma Ortiz and Roberto Carlos Ferreira. Gustavo Villalba is identified as the only person on the list who still serves as a judge.