0010912680053D, National ID No.;
A00000204, Passport
Official reason
Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated Rafael Antonio Ortega Murillo, son of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and two companies he owns or controls and uses to finance and launder money for the Ortega regime. OFAC also designated Distribuidor Nicaraguense de Petroleo S.A. (DNP), a company owned or controlled by Rafael Antonio Ortega Murillo as well as by Nicaraguan Vice President and First Lady Rosario Maria Murillo De Ortega. Rafael Ortega is a key money manager for the Ortega family, along with Vice President of Nicaragua and First Lady Rosario Maria Murillo De Ortega. Rafael Ortega uses at least two companies he owns or controls, Inversiones Zanzibar, S.A and Servicio De Proteccion Y Vigilancia, S.A. to generate profits, launder money, and gain preferential access to markets for the Ortega regime.
Rafael Ortega is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13851 for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods and services in support of, Vice President of Nicaragua and First Lady Rosario Maria Murillo De Ortega, who was designated on November 27, 2018, pursuant to E.O 13851. Rafael Ortega owns or controls Inversiones Zanzibar, S.A., which he uses to obscure the transfer of profits from Distribuidor Nicaraguense de Petroleo, S.A., also designated today, and as a front company to procure fuel stations used to avoid sanctions against the regime. In early 2019, Rafael Ortega diversified Ortega family financial holdings by purchasing gas stations under figurehead names ahead of expected sanctions against the regime.
Rafael Ortega also owns or controls Servicio De Proteccion Y Vigilancia, S.A., a security firm that has received millions in government contracts and provides protection services for Ortega family businesses.
Inversiones Zanzibar, S.A and Servicio De Proteccion Y Vigilancia, S.A., are being designated for being owned or controlled by, or having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Rafael Ortega, whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to E.O. 13851.
On November 27, 2018, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701–1706) (IEEPA), issued Executive Order 13851 (83 FR 61505, November 29, 2018) (E.O. 13851). In E.O. 13851, the President determined that the situation in Nicaragua, including the violent response by the Government of Nicaragua to the protests that began on April 18, 2018, and the Ortega regime's systematic dismantling and undermining of democratic institutions and the rule of law, its use of indiscriminate violence and repressive tactics against civilians, and its corruption leading to the destabilization of Nicaragua's economy, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
