National Police Commander Commissioner General César Roberto Silguero Lobos said that more than 200 Paraguayan police officers received discharge after failing integrity assessments and a polygraph examination. The procedure is used annually to assess candidates for promotions within the ranks. No official list or independent confirmation of the figure was available in the reports reviewed.
According to Silguero, the process covers promotion cohorts from 1992 to 1995. In addition to the polygraph, the institution considers each officer’s service record, disciplinary history and overall profile before authorizing career advancement.
Silguero stressed that failing the test does not by itself mean there are indications of corruption or criminal proceedings against the officers. He said it is an integrity filter for promotion. “Once they have been assessed, the corresponding reports arrive, and the officer’s entire profile is evaluated, based on their career, their record and also the integrity tests,” he said.
National Police Public Relations Chief Commissioner Juan Fretes explained that the procedure records physical reactions, such as heart rate and blood pressure, using sensors similar to those used in an electrocardiogram. He said his own examination, conducted in 2011 so he could join Federico Franco’s presidential security detail, included questions about handling confidential information.
The available reports do not clarify how many officers received discharge or detail the administrative basis for each individual measure. As a result, the institutional scope and effects on promotions, staffing and due-process safeguards cannot be determined from the available information.
In Asunción, the National Police is also holding the 11th International Cybercrime Meeting together with the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). The meeting brings together police officers from the region, members of the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s Cybercrime Unit and technicians from the Cybercrime Department to discuss digital fraud, cyberattacks and cooperation against transnational criminal organizations.