AA
Share
On Thursday, February 26, 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned five officials from the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime who “lead the country’s main financial, communications, and military agencies” and are accused of collaborating with the dictatorship to “repress its people.”
According to a U.S. Treasury statement, the five sanctioned are:
- Major General Leonel José Gutiérrez López, head of the Army’s Directorate of Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence (DICIM).
- Retired Major General Denis Membreño Rivas, Director of the Financial Analysis Unit (UAF).
- Former Commissioner General Aldo Martín Sáenz Ulloa, Deputy Director of the FAU.
- Johana Vanessa Flores Jiménez, head of the Ministry of Labor.
- Celia Reyes Ochoa, deputy director of the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Postal Services (Telcor).
“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 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“We will continue to hold the dictatorship to account and to amplify the Nicaraguan people’s aspirations for freedom and justice.”
The sanctions are part of a series of measures that the U.S. government has been applying to the Ortega regime because it 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.”
All “assets and interests” that the designated persons have in the United States -or that are under the control or possession of U.S. citizens- are “blocked”. Additionally, they must be reported to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Since 2018, the United States has maintained targeted financial sanctions against senior officials and state-linked entities. U.S. visa bans, according to Human Rights Watch, cover more than 2,000 current or former Nicaraguan regime officials.
Responsible for the “internal and external surveillance” of the Army
The Treasury Department detailed that the Directorate of Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence, headed by Gutiérrez López, is one of the “most opaque and powerful structures” of the Army. In addition, it points out that it works in coordination with the Police and State security agencies, to “guarantee at all costs that there is no opposition to the regime”.
According to the communiqué, this Army directorate is “fundamental for monitoring protesters, journalists, human rights defenders and retired military personnel considered disloyal”.
In April 2025, the UN Group of Experts on Human Rights on Nicaragua (GHREN) included Gutiérrez López on a list of 54 high-ranking officials identified as responsible for serious human rights violations and crimes against humanity in the country. The DICIM is part of the directorates that assumed “operational control of repression” in 2018.
UAF contributes to “impunity in corruption cases”
The U.S. Treasury noted that the regime has “instrumentalized” laws related to anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing to increase its “capacity for political repression against the opposition”.
According to the U.S., Membreño Rivas and Sáenz Ulloa, from the UAF, maintain a “constant monitoring of the inflows of money from abroad, with the aim of blocking any type of financing to the activities of peaceful opposition organizations and independent civil society.”
“This allows the Nicaraguan regime to control and use the institutions in charge of preventing and prosecuting money laundering to persecute political opponents and to benefit its allies and interests,” according to the comunique.
The UAF has been in charge of “liquidating the assets” of political dissidents, political prisoners and civil society organizations “without legal basis”.
“The UAF’s lack of autonomy undermines the independence and integrity of the system and contributes to impunity in cases of corruption and money laundering,” the Treasury stated.
Abuses of labor rights and unfair competition
The Minister of Labor, Johana Vanessa Flores Jiménez, was sanctioned on the grounds that Nicaragua has created a “high-risk environment for U.S. companies that invest and operate” in the country.
Treasury cites the October 25, 2025 report of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), which concludes that the regime “through its acts, policies and practices, has exploited its own workers” through the Ministry of Labor.
This, according to the statement, has led to “conditions of unfair competition, has confiscated the property rights of domestic and foreign religious institutions, as well as U.S. persons or businesses”.
The deputy director of the Nicaraguan Institute of Telecommunications and Postal Services, Celia Reyes Ochoa, has been key within the regime’s surveillance and intelligence apparatus used to “monitor and control social networks, the press and other forms of expression” in the country.
With the General Law of Convergent Telecommunications, which came into force in November 2025, TELCOR obtained broad powers to “collect private data, intercept communications and geolocate people in Nicaragua”.
The law has a direct and severe impact on the digital rights and privacy of users of telecommunications services.
“This legislation further strengthened TELCOR’s oversight and control over social networks and media,” the U.S. Treasury noted.
From this state entity, the general director of TELCOR, Nahima Janett Díaz – appointed in 2022 – allegedly supervised the so-called “troll farms” dedicated to harassment, defamation and cyber-attacks against political opponents.
