Major League Baseball is investigating a $2.8 million scandal involving a Dominican prospect who allegedly faked his death and misrepresented his age. The prospect, identified as Daury Severino Damaso, was being scouted under the name David Severino.

A Dominican tombstone reportedly marks the death of Damaso at two years old due to respiratory illness in 2012. However, Damaso is alive and was recently a heralded international baseball prospect.

In May, the Cleveland Guardians canceled an agreement with the teen, known to them as Severino, after discovering he was two years older than initially reported. MLB insider Wilbar Sanchez reported that Severino was thought to be 13 or 14 years old. The fabricated identity of Severino, including a false birth certificate with a Dec. 20, 2011, birth date, along with fake medical and school records, was reportedly created by his trainer, Francisco Nieves, in 2023. The tombstone was a later addition to the deception.

The Guardians, MLB, and Nieves declined to comment on the matter when reached by ESPN.

Reports indicate that Severino, playing against younger competition, impressed evaluators. "You have to have [guts] to do something like this," John Pereyra, a trainer at Futuro Big Leaguers in the Dominican Republic who worked with Severino, told 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 purchased Severino’s rights for $20,000 in 2023 after being told he was 11. This decision could now financially jeopardize his baseball academy, as the teen is suspended from signing with a team on the international market until 2028. One scout suggested that a potential six-figure payday could now be reduced to a mere $10,000.

MLB executives reportedly had suspicions about the prospect's age. "I went to see him and the first thing I thought was, ‘There’s no way this kid is the age he says he is’," one executive told ESPN. Another added, "The face was older. You could just tell he was older."