OFAC imposed sanctions on two of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s closest associates: the Vice President of Nicaragua and First Lady, Rosario Maria Murillo De Ortega (Murillo), and Nestor Moncada Lau (Moncada), who has acted as a national security advisor to the President and Vice President. Murillo is being designated for being an official of the Government of Nicaragua on or after January 10, 2007. Elected as Vice President in 2016 and inaugurated in 2017, Murillo has been the de facto co-president of Nicaragua since 2007, when President Daniel Ortega proclaimed he would share “50 percent of power” with her.
Murillo is also a leader with access and influence over the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)’s youth organization, known as the Sandinista Youth, and the Nicaraguan National Police (NNP). The Sandinista Youth and the NNP are entities that have, or whose members have, engaged in serious human rights abuse in Nicaragua. According to public reports, the NNP have been part of “Death Squads” that have engaged in extrajudicial killings, torture, and kidnapping, while Sandinista Youth paramilitaries, armed and paid by the FSLN, have been implicated in serious human rights abuses related to the ongoing protests against the Nicaraguan government, including attacks on protesters. Further, in June 2018, masked gunmen, accompanied by individuals identified by witnesses as Nicaraguan police, reportedly set fire to a family home in Managua, killing six, including two young children. Finally, Murillo has a long history of engaging in acts of corruption related to Nicaragua.
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.
