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The police under the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have arrested retired Army Colonel Rodolfo Castillo (“Payín”), who for over three decades has been one of Lenín Cerna’s main collaborators in espionage and political intelligence operations. He served in the General Directorate of State Security (DGSE) of the Interior Ministry during the 1980s, the Army’s Defense Information Directorate (DID) in the early 1990s, and in the FSLN Secretariat between 2004 and 2011.
The former military officer was detained while at a special viewing platform during the horse festival in honor of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, located in front of Friday’s restaurant on the Masaya Highway, on August 1, 2025, in Managua. So far, authorities have not disclosed where he is being held or whether there are any charges against him.
Who is “Payín” Castillo?
In 1974, Rodolfo “Payín” Castillo co-founded the Sandinista Student Association (AES) in Matagalpa along with other young activists. He later took part in the so-called “Children’s Insurrection” in Matagalpa—a student and youth mobilization against the National Guard that took place on August 28, 1978.
He was also a member of the Revolutionary Student Front (FER) and participated in several Sandinista guerrilla operations, including bank robberies.
After the triumph of the Revolution in 1979, he received training in Germany and Bulgaria as part of the first generation of cadres to join the General Directorate of State Security (DGSE) of the Interior Ministry. He worked under Lenín Cerna in State Security throughout the 1980s.
In 1990, when a contingent of the former DGSE was integrated into the newly created Defense Information Directorate (DID) of the Army, Castillo joined this new Army unit under Lenín Cerna’s leadership, eventually attaining the rank of colonel.
His final post in the Army was as military attaché in Spain between 2000 and 2003. After retiring from the Army, he resumed work with Lenín Cerna, who at that point was the Secretary of Organization for the FSLN, in charge of the Electoral Command structures.
The National Secretariat for Territorial Organization was “a little-known structure, but the one responsible for mobilizing the FSLN grassroots,” said a security analyst interviewed by CONFIDENCIAL.
In this parallel structure to power, “they managed information, files and archives and important members of the FSLN,” as a kind of “personnel and cadre management” of the party, the expert said.
Within the FSLN Secretariat, “Payín” shared the second-in-command position with Vicente “El Perro” Chávez, both reporting to Lenín Cerna, “in a structure that controlled political and electoral mobilization, unions, and paramilitaries,” the source said.
“Payín” was ousted from the FSLN Secretariat in April 2011 by orders of Rosario Murillo, along with his boss Lenín Cerna, following a power struggle between Cerna and fellow former DGSE officer Nestor Moncada Lau. This came after a corruption complaint about the FSLN Secretariat’s links to the General Directorate of Revenue, which also led to the dismissal of its head, Walter Porras.
After Cerna, Castillo, and Chávez were expelled from the FSLN Secretariat, Murillo handed political control to Moncada Lau and eventually to Fidel Moreno, who was appointed Secretary of Organization of the FSLN.
Following the 2018 crisis triggered by the April Rebellion, Cerna and his team—including Castillo, Chávez, and other political operatives—were reinstated in 2019 as part of an analysis and intelligence unit. However, Murillo kept them sidelined from any real influence within Ortega’s power circle.
His only and last public statement
Originally from Matagalpa, “Payín” Castillo is a figure little known in the media. On August 28, 2019, marking the 41st anniversary of the so-called “Children’s Insurrection” in Matagalpa, he recalled his participation in that historic event.
“From that open conflict, with the clear vision of those children who back then embodied a spirit of resistance, for both the generations before us and those still to come,” he said in remarks to official media.
