US sanctions two children of Nicaraguan presidential couple

AFP

The United States on Thursday announced sanctions against two sons of Nicaragua’s
presidential couple, both of whom hold government posts, as well as several enterprises
involved with gold mining in the Central American country.

Washington has branded the government of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and co
president, Rosario Murillo, a dictatorship, accusing it of seizing total power with a
constitutional rewrite and crushing dissent.

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Maurice
Facundo Ortega Murillo, who serves as Nicaragua’s presidential delegate for sports, and
Daniel Edmundo Ortega Murillo, who oversees Managua’s government communications.

The State Department said in a statement regarding the sanctions that the Ortega-Murillo
presidency “has continually consolidated its illegitimate power into the first family’s hands,
anointing their children as dictatorship officials to carry out their dynastic objectives.”

State Department: “complex network
of front companies and intermediaries”

“Since 2020, the dictatorship has restructured the gold sector into a complex network of front
companies and intermediaries designed to generate foreign currency, launder sanctioned
assets, and reinforce political control for their own benefit,” the State Department added.

The sanctions, which prevents those named from conducting business or holding assets in
the United States, extend to five other individuals and seven businesses connected to
Nicaragua’s gold mining industry.

Nicaragua’s Minister of Energy and Mines Salvador Mansell has also been under US sanctions
since 2021.