The desperation was so loud that instead of landing an MLB payday, they walked away with nothing. Actually, scratch that. They got a suspension. In 2023, Dominican prospect Daury David Severino Damaso effectively became “David Severino Damaso,” a fake younger identity allegedly built to make him more valuable to MLB teams. And this was not some simple age tweak.

The operation reportedly involved falsified birth, school and medical records, a fake death certificate and even a staged gravesite, all for a better shot at baseball money.

“The MLB investigation uncovered a series of extreme efforts by the player’s handler to make him appear nearly two years younger than he actually is,” reported ESPN. “…including faking a birth certificate to create a new identity, falsifying medical and school records, filing a fraudulent death certificate, and even creating the gravesite scene, according to sources.”

And for a while, the lie paid off. Last December, the Cleveland Guardians agreed to a massive $2.8 million pre-deal with David Severino, believing the switch-hitting infielder was just 13 or 14 and part of the 2029 international class.

The problem was not that Severino would actually have been eligible to sign in 2027. The problem was that he was already 16 and allegedly being passed off as nearly two years younger. That meant teams were judging a more physically developed teenager against much younger prospects, dramatically changing how impressive he looked.

Daury was actually born on April 2, 2010. But in 2023, his former trainer, Francisco Nieves, allegedly gave him an entirely new identity with his parents’ approval. Daury became “David Severino Damaso,” supposedly his own younger brother, born on December 20, 2011. Nieves reportedly backed that story with a late-filed fake birth certificate, along with falsified school and medical records. And somehow, that still was not the craziest part of the scheme.

The scheme then went completely off the rails. To erase Daury’s real identity, they allegedly filed a fake death certificate claiming he had died from a respiratory illness on May 5, 2012, just two years after his birth. And they did not stop with paperwork. Nieves and Daury’s parents reportedly planted a fake tombstone at a gravesite in La Romana, Dominican Republic, creating an entire death scene to sell the lie.

Fans were stunned less by the age lie itself and more by how far the scheme allegedly went. The fake death certificate and tombstone drew the biggest reactions, with one fan summing it up bluntly: “Faking his death is absolutely next level.”

Others joked that the whole thing sounded more like a TV crime plot than an MLB prospect story. But not everyone was piling on Severino, with some arguing that the adults who built the scheme deserve far more blame than the teenager caught in the middle.

The sharper anger was aimed at MLB’s international signing system. One fan asked, “Why are they signing a 13 year old kid to begin with!!!” Another said, “MLB needs to get this stuff under control somehow. Pre-deals with 13 year olds seems very wrong.”

And that frustration is easy to understand. MLB does not allow international amateurs to officially sign whenever they want. A player must be at least 16 when signing, turn 17 before Sept. 1 of the following year, register with MLB in advance, and sign during the Jan. 15 to Dec. 15 window. Teams also operate with fixed bonus pools, with Cleveland allotted $8.03 million for its entire 2026 international class.

So when millions are being informally committed to players years before they are even eligible to sign, the gap between MLB’s official rules and the reality of international scouting becomes hard to ignore.

And Cleveland has seen this movie before. In 2012, a visa renewal process in the Dominican Republic exposed then-Guardians pitcher Fausto Carmona as Roberto Hernández. Hernández had not only been playing under a different name, but was also three years older than he had claimed.

As the fraudulent activities around Severino came to light, his trainer spoke about the situation.

Severino’s trainer addresses age fraud, claims innocence

The Dominican Republic has produced some of MLB’s biggest stars, from Juan Soto and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to Fernando Tatis Jr., and the money at the top can be life-changing.

But in poorer baseball communities, that dream can also create enormous pressure.

For some families, one signing bonus can look like a ticket out of poverty, and that desperation can push people toward dangerous shortcuts.

John Pereyra, who trained Severino for two years before Cleveland agreed to the deal, pointed directly to those economic pressures when discussing how a scheme like this could happen.

“When you have a kid, and you tell him, ‘Look, your name is not Daury. If someone asks your name, you say, ‘David Severino Damaso’ — [he will] do it,” Pereyra told ESPN in Spanish.

Pereyra was stunned by how far Nieves and Severino’s parents allegedly went to sell the fake identity. He admitted he had doubts when he first heard the story about a dead older brother, but those suspicions faded after he saw the tombstone and believed the family’s version.

“You have to have [guts] to do something like this,” Pereyra remarked, per ESPN. “I’ve heard about false birth documents and stuff like that, but to put together what this guy did — that’s movie stuff. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen anything like that in the Dominican. In my life, I have never seen anything like that.”

Pereyra claimed that he had no idea about the false identity Nieves and Daury’s parents had built. He runs a baseball training academy, Futuro Big Leaguers, in Santiago, where he trains up to 12 kids at a time. Pereyra saw Severino in late 2023 and was impressed by his skills.

When he asked about Severino’s age, he was told that the kid was 11. Pereyra purchased Severino’s rights from Nieves for $20,000.

And that age gap mattered. ESPN reported that Severino looked dominant against 12- and 13-year-olds, but against players his actual age, he was described as “barely hanging on.” The disguise was not foolproof either. Several team executives reportedly thought Severino looked older than the age being presented, raising suspicions long before the scheme fully unraveled.

Following the age fraud revelations, the MLB has not taken any disciplinary action against the Cleveland Guardians.

As for Severino, he can now only enter the international amateur market after a year, when he becomes eligible to sign with a team.