BOLIVARIAN REPUBLIC OF VENEZUELA

MINISTRE OF POPULAR POWER FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

NATIONAL EXPERIMENTAL SECURITIY UNIVERSITY

NATIONAL GRADUATE DIRECTORATE

BARINAS STATE BARINAS

English work
The crime of false document
Modulo III

Facilitated

Carmen Palencia

Speciali:

PNFA-SC Especialization: policial

Zuley Alvarado Tarazona

CIV-6.932.635

Barinas, 24 de november del 2020

 The crime of documentary falsification

The crime of document falsification consists of altering, modifying or falsifying

certain essential elements of a document. It is a fraudulent crime of a technical
nature that often requires the intervention of expert calligraphers and
documentologists.

The alteration or falsification of any essential element of a document is a crime

of document falsification.

It is committed when a person alters, modifies, simulates or falsifies a document

or part of it. In other words, the culprit can make the document false by
tampering with one of its components or create a new document from the false
one. Both assumptions are documentary falsehoods.

This crime is regulated in articles 390 to 399 of the Penal Code, within Chapter
II "On documentary falsehoods" of Title XVIII.

The protected legal asset is the security of legal traffic, but also the public faith
and trust of citizens and institutions in documents as evidence.
This is a very serious crime punishable by imprisonment and very high fines. In
addition, the Penal Code establishes distinctions based on the active subject,
so each case will be different.

In these cases it is not only important to have the services of a specialized

lawyer, but it will also be essential to hire a calligraphic expert and
documentologists to help us study the details of the case in depth.

Document
To understand what is understood by a document for criminal purposes, we
must consult article 26 of the current Venezuelan Penal Code.

In this way, a document for the criminal field is a material support that includes
data and information that have evidentiary effects or legal relevance. In
addition, for criminal purposes we must distinguish between public, official,
commercial and private documents.

For the purposes of this Code, any material support that expresses or
incorporates data, facts or narratives with evidential efficacy or any other type of
legal relevance is considered a document.

Article 26 of the Venezuelan Penal Code makes reference to the types of

documentary falsification.

There are four types of document forgery that depend on the type of document
forged. Each one is punished with different penalties depending on its severity
and the subject who commits the crime.

1. Falsification of public, official and commercial documents and of the

dispatches transmitted by telecommunication services.

This type of document forgery can only be committed by public officials and
authorities. This crime is punishable by imprisonment, a fine and a special
disqualification. They will be considered to have committed falsehood when:

• Alter a document in any of its essential elements or requirements.

• Simulate a complete document or part of it, as long as it misleads about its
authenticity.
• Suppose the intervention in an act of people who were not or when false
statements or statements are attributed to those who have participated.
• They are untruthful in the narration of the events.

1. He will be punished with prison terms of three to six years, a fine of six to
twenty-four months and special disqualification for a period of two to six
years, the authority or public official who, in the exercise of his functions,
commits falsehood:
1º altering a document in any of its essential elements or requirements.

2. º simulating a document in whole or in part, in a way that misleads its

authenticity.

3. º supposing in an act the intervention of people who have not had it, or
attributing to those who have participated in it statements or statements
different from those they would have made.

4. º failing to be truthful in the narration of the facts.

Article 390, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code, however, a private individual may
also be guilty of a crime of falsifying documents in public, official or commercial
documents. In these cases, ideological falsehood is excluded for being
untruthful and both falsehood and trafficking and the use of the falsified
document knowing that it is false are punished.

1.The individual who commits in a public, official or commercial document, any

of the falsehoods described in the first three numbers of section 1 of article 390,
will be punished with imprisonment from six months to three years and a fine of
six to twelve months.

Article 392. Section 1 of the Venezuelan Penal Code

2 .Falsification of private documents

This crime is similar, but it refers only to private documents, leaving out public
documents. Furthermore, the active subject will always be a private individual.
Anyone who, to harm another, commits in a private document any of the
falsehoods provided for in the first three numbers of section 1 of article 390,
shall be punished with imprisonment from six months to two years.
Article 395 of the Venezuelan Penal Code

3. Forgery of certificates
As with the falsification of official, commercial and public documents, the crime
of falsifying certificates can be committed by individuals, authorities, public
officials and physicians. In the case of public authorities or officials, in addition
to the fine, a suspension penalty will be imposed.

Both the forger and the trafficker are punished, as well as the person who
makes use of the forged document knowing that it is false. However, this
precept will not apply in terms of certificates related to Social Security and
Public Finance.

The physician who releases a false certificate will be punished with a fine of
three to twelve months.

Article 397 of the Venezuelan Penal Code

The authority or public official who releases false certification with little
importance in the legal traffic will be punished with the penalty of suspension
from six months to two years.

This precept will not be applicable to certificates related to Social Security and
Public Finance.

Article 398 of the Penal Code.

4. Forgery of credit and debit cards and travelers checks

Article 399 bis of the Venezuelan Penal Code punishes those who alter, copy,
reproduce, falsify, traffic and use credit or debit cards or traveller's checks
knowing that they are false.
Likewise, the penalty will be imposed in its upper half when this falsification
affects a group of people or when it is committed by a criminal organization that
engages in this type of activity.
1. Anyone who alters, copies, reproduces or in any other way forges credit or
debit cards or traveller's checks, will be punished with a prison sentence of four
to eight years. The penalty will be imposed in its upper half when the falsified
effects affect a generality of people or when the acts are committed within the
framework of a criminal organization dedicated to these activities.
When, in accordance with the provisions of article 31 of the criminal code, a
legal person is responsible for the above crimes, the penalty of a fine of two to
five years will be imposed.
Considering the rules established in article 66 of the criminal code, the judges
and courts may also impose the penalties set forth in letters b) to g) of section 7
of article 33.
2. Possession of counterfeit credit or debit cards or traveller's checks intended
for distribution or trafficking shall be punished with the penalty indicated for
counterfeiting.
3. Whoever, without having intervened in the falsification, uses, to the detriment
of another and knowing the falsification, credit or debit cards or falsified
traveller's checks will be punished with a prison sentence of two to five years.

Signatures always leave a mark, and the handwriting expert is the professional
in charge of detecting it in the small details of the microcosm of writing and its
documentary supports.

Almudena Galán, expert calligrapher and documentologists

The calligrapher expert is a professional who is in charge of comparing the
doubted documents with the undoubted ones and, through scientific techniques
and procedures, analyze the possible alterations, modifications and
falsifications of a document.
For practical purposes, most of the cases that handwriting experts examine
consist of analyzing forged signatures and letters, and cases of ratification of
holographic wills are also common. However, they can also detect washings,
scrapes, ink overlap, or other types of forgery on documents.
Following an order of idea, we can say that the use of a false public document
is provided for in article 323 in accordance with article 319, both of the
Venezuelan Penal Code, in the following terms:
Article 322. Anyone who has made use of or in any way has taken advantage of
a false act, even if he / she did not have part in the falsification, will be punished
with the respective penalties established in articles 319, if it is a public act, and
321, if it is a private act.
Article 319. Any person who, through any procedure, commits falsehood with
the copy of a public act, either assuming the original, or altering an authentic
copy, or, in short, issuing a copy contrary to the truth, which forges totally or
partially a document to give it the appearance of a public instrument or alter a
real one of this kind, or that manages to appropriate official documents to usurp
an identity other than their own, will suffer a prison sentence of six years to
twelve years.
This crime of Use of a false public document comprises two hypotheses:

1. Make use of a false act even if there was no part in the forgery, likewise
2. Taking advantage of the false act even if there was no part in the falsification.
The use of a false public document consists of applying the document to the job
for which it has been assigned. It is the presentation of the document as
authentic, legitimate in any legal situation.
We can mean that before a court, in a registry, before a public official, to use
the document as evidence, or for its protocolization after the signatures are
authenticated, or for the file as proof, or the recognition of a signature, in thesis
general, conforming the end to the nature of the act ”.
The protected legal asset is none other than protecting the public faith that can
be violated by using false documents. We can say that authors Hernando
Grisanti Aveledo saw the crime of using a false public document that is made
up of three elements: the falsity of the document used, the knowledge that the
active subject has of that falsity and an act of use.
Therefore, we have to say that the first requirement for the configuration of the
use of a false public document refers to the existence of a false act, so that at
the time of making the imputation of this criminal type, the existence of the false
act that was subsequently used, by means of an Authenticity or Falsehood
expertise performed on the document.