US Sanctions Nicaraguan Officials

The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned five Nicaraguan government officials who lead the principal financial, communications, and military agencies that enable Nicaragua’s Murillo-Ortega dictatorship to repress its people.

The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned five Nicaraguan government officials who lead the principal financial, communications, and military agencies that enable Nicaragua’s Murillo-Ortega dictatorship to repress its people. The action was taken on February 16.The individuals sanctioned include the Director and Deputy Director of Nicaragua’s Financial Analysis Unit, the Minister of Labor, the Deputy Director General of the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Postal Services, and the head of the Nicaraguan Army’s Directorate of Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence.“The Murillo-Ortega dictatorship has continued its domestic and international campaign of repression and tyranny to intimidate, stifle, and undermine peaceful political opponents and dissenters,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent.Since 2018, the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship has violently repressed protests, unjustly detained and killed political opponents, carried out extraterritorial killings, silenced independent media and forced journalists into exile, and consolidated its illegitimate grip on power in Nicaragua.In January 2025, Nicaragua’s National Assembly—co-opted by the Murillo-Ortega regime—approved a constitutional rewrite intended to cement the dynastic future of Murillo and Ortega’s continued rule. These measures elevated Murillo from Vice President to Co-President and subordinated all branches of government to the executive, effectively eliminating the separation of powers.The new constitution stripped civil and political protections, consolidated governmental control over the media, and legalized the regime’s use of paramilitary forces to enforce repression.The Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Postal Services (TELCOR) is the regulatory body for telecommunications and postal services. TELCOR functions under the direction of the Murillo-Ortega dictatorship as a central component of a broad surveillance and intelligence apparatus used to monitor and control social media, the press, and other forms of expression.Additionally, TELCOR’s director general, Nahima Janett Diaz Flores (Diaz), reportedly oversaw so-called “troll farms” that engaged in harassment, defamation, and cyberattacks against political opponents.On January 9, 2022, Othe U.S. designated Diaz, for being an official of the Nicaraguan Army’s Directorate of Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence (DICIM). DICIM is responsible for the Nicaraguan Army’s internal and external surveillance as well as coordinating with police and state security agencies to ensure at all costs that there is no opposition to the regime.DICIM is central to monitoring protesters, journalists, human rights defenders, and retired military members considered disloyal. Major General of the Nicaraguan Army Leonel Jose Gutierrez Lopez (Gutierrez) headed the DICIM for more than a decade.“We will continue to hold the dictatorship to account,” said Secretary Bessent, “and to amplify the Nicaraguan people’s aspirations for freedom and justice."