Uruguay has always boasted of being “the Switzerland of America”, an oasis of institutionality, transparency and low level of corruption in a region plagued by vices. This story of exceptional nature, repeated ad nauseam by politicians, intellectuals and progressive media, has served for decades as a shield to avoid any profound self-criticism. But the facts, relentless as ever, end up overthrowing the most deep-rooted myths. And few cases illustrate this better than that of Sebastián Marset, the Uruguayan drug trafficker who for years mocked the authorities of several countries... until Bolivia, that country that many people look over their shoulders, achieved what the Uruguayan State could not or did: catch him
.On March 13, 2026, in a DEA-backed operation, Bolivian security forces captured Marset in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. There was no miraculous escape this time. The man who was walking around the region with multiple false identities, who managed a second-division soccer team and who was on the lists of the most wanted by Interpol, Europol and the courts of Paraguay, Brazil and the United States, ended up being handcuffed and quickly extradited to the United States. Bolivia demonstrated that, when there is political will and effective international coordination, high-profile drug traffickers fall. Dot.
Meanwhile, in Uruguay, the same supposedly “exceptional” State provided Marset with the tools to continue operating. Let's remember the facts: in October 2021, Marset was arrested in Dubai for entering with a false Paraguayan passport. A prisoner in the United Arab Emirates, he requested help from the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry. And here comes the scandalous thing: the then government (under Luis Lacalle Pou) processed and handed him an Uruguayan passport with unusual speed, even sending it in a diplomatic pouch. Officials ignored alerts from their own diplomats abroad and ignored recommendations not to rush the process
.That passport was not a mere administrative document. It was the key that opened the prison door in Dubai and allowed Marset to escape unhindered. With him in hand, he settled in Bolivia, where he lived under a different identity (even with false Brazilian or Bolivian documents), invested in soccer and continued to move tons of cocaine to Europe. The scandal led to chain resignation: Vice Chancellor Carolina Ache, Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo, Interior Minister Luis Alberto Heber, Undersecretary Guillermo Maciel and others. Judicial investigations, revealing chats (“lose your cell phone”), destroyed or “lost” files... A festival of irregularities that, however, ended up being shelved in Uruguay for “misdemeanor”, because technically Marset had
