Paraguay's national audit office, the Contraloría General de la República, says it has found 1,090 university degrees declared by public officials that the issuing universities could not back. The figure is preliminary and comes from an audit of the traceability of academic titles held across the state.

Comptroller General Camilo Benítez presented the findings on Thursday, 22 October 2026, alongside Senator Patrick Kemper, who chairs a special Senate commission examining suspected fake degrees. The Senate and the audit office signed a cooperation agreement in July to support that inquiry.

What the audit found

According to reports in Última Hora and La Nación, auditors examined 34,068 degree records. The 1,090 unsupported titles belong to 1,082 officials working in 35 state bodies. The Ministry of Education and Science and the audit office itself are among the institutions where such cases were found, and four audit office employees now face internal administrative proceedings.

The count is likely to change. At the cut-off date, 221 public bodies and 27 educational institutions had not yet replied to the auditors' requests, and the audit could not be completed within its initial 45-day window. Benítez described the situation as much worse than expected, calling it a "perverse reality."

The audit office has filed a formal complaint with the Public Ministry, which will decide whether criminal cases should be opened. No estimate of financial loss has been published yet; auditors still need to establish whether salary increments or bonuses were paid on the strength of the questioned degrees.

Regulator criticised

The report also turned to the National Council of Higher Education (Cones), the body that authorises university programmes. Auditors identified 877 academic programmes without current accreditation in the group reviewed, 184 of them in health fields. Benítez said the council's oversight amounted to almost no control and recommended that it consider suspending programme approvals until its procedures are rebuilt. Cones has pointed to limited staff and infrastructure.

Senator Kemper urged caution, noting that not every one of the 1,090 cases has been proven to be a forgery. Some may turn out to reflect registry errors or missing paperwork. The inquiry grew out of an earlier Ministry of Education case in which hundreds of declared teacher degrees could not be located.

Why it matters for verification

The case shows how a degree can pass through hiring and promotion without anyone contacting the issuing university. For public employers anywhere, the practical lesson is simple: confirm a qualification directly with the institution's registrar or the national regulator, check that the programme was accredited at the time of study, and keep a record of that confirmation in the personnel file.

Sources

This News Desk report summarises information published by the sources above, written in our own words. Persons named in criminal matters are accused, not convicted, unless a court has ruled otherwise. To report an error, use our contact page.

ParaguayPublic sectorDegree verificationAuditHigher education regulator

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