Comer callado #NicaraguaNoCalla Ortega Murillo S.A. Ortega Murillo S.A.
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Ortega Murillo S.A.

On a sunny morning of February fifth, 2020, an employee of Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo, one of the nine children of Nicaragua’s president and maybe the most confrontational in the social media with the opponents, attended a meeting at the state Empresa Nicaragüense de Transmision Electrica (Enatrel), in charge of the maintenance of the lines that bring power to country’s homes, for signing a contract for 128.682 dollars.

The signatory was Danilo Rafael Lechado Cruz, a friend of Ortega Murillo since they studied Social Communications according to their university classmates. The signature was for advertising energy-saving measures. He attended representing Difuso Comunicaciones, sanctioned last July by the U.S. Department of Treasury pleading that it is used by “ Ortega’s regime for spreading government’s propaganda”.

“Difuso Comunicaciones SA, (is) an advertising and public relations company that produces most of the radio and tv ad campaigns for the government of Nicaragua, different state entities, and the Sandinista National Liberation Front”, the Department of Treasury pointed out.

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Danilo Lechado Cruz, Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo’s old university classmate, is the representative of the production company Difuso. On his Facebook profile, he shows off proudly a picture with the president.
Photo/Courtesy CONNECTAS

Lechado Cruz is one of the participants in this business plan in which lawyers, legal experts, Ortegas’ relatives, and advisors of their inner circle. Some of these names were revealed by CONNECTAS in 2017 when a report about the presidential family’s media was published. Now the list is long, and the participation of this corporate group in the advertising sector is disclosed.

The documents of the public tender LP-DRP-02-2019 present the mechanism used to secure the agreement. Even though there was a formal process, the only contender of Difuso was Canal 8, run by the same con of the president.

Between 2018 and 2019, CONNECTAS documented 936.829 dollars in contracts of companies linked to the President’s children, and awarded by four State entities: Enatrel, the Instituto Nacional Tecnologico, the Instituto Nicaragüense de Turismo and the Empresa Administradora de Aeropuertos Internacionales. Essentially, they focus on two areas: mass media associated with the same group totaling 435.298 dollars, and the remaining in advertising companies.

Businesses network of the President’s children

Through the companies, formed by a very inner circle with the State, the President’s children earn millions from the power position.

Ortega Murillo S.A. Ortega Murillo S.A.

Source: public documents, local mass media researches, official sources

The business with the State, through the official’s relatives or friends, are part of one of the most traditional patterns in Latin America for taking advantage of public resources; nonetheless, both, the representatives of these companies and the government remained silent when they were asked for an explanation about the contracts.

CONNECTAS wrote to the representatives of the Nicaraguan State entities participating in these businesses but they did not make any comment on this report.

During the last two weeks, there were attempts to reach Jose Maria Enriquez Moncada, one of the Ortega Murillo family’s lawyers and included as a partner, directive, or legal representative in several of the benefited companies, but he ignored the voice messages left in his phone to arrange an interview.

“All the purchases (benefiting the presidential family) are one more example of the State’s contracting system crash”, said Dayra Valle, an expert on transparency and public contracting.

“it is added up to the improprieties taking place for years”, she highlights.

The contracting expert warns about the use of the procurement system from Nicaragua “to engage in corruption acts”, and that every time the public entities hide information on who they hire. “They want to prevent us from knowing who is in charge of these purchases”, Valle says.

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Channel 2

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Channel 13

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Telenica Contract

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Va Difuso

Ortega Murillo S.A.

InOut

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Lumicentro EPN

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Radio Ya

“Difuso” story, a first case

The advertising company Difuso was set up 18 months after Ortega got back into power in 2007. Its offices are around the residence of the presidential family in El Carmen housing development, guarded by dozens of police officers under extreme security conditions.

According to tax information from Nicaragua, looked through last October, 40 percent of the shares are in the hands of Nestor Moncada Lau, Ortega’s security advisors and member of the State Security during the first Sandinista government in the eighties, who nowadays is the most powerful official fter the President and his wife, Vice-president Rosario Murillo.

Another 30 percent of Difuso’s shares are in the name of lawyer Maria Luisa Mejia, who has worked for Vice-president Murillo in the registration of two properties in El Crucero. According to local media researches, she appears as a founding partner of Canal 13 (managed by Ortega’s other three children: Maurice, Camila y Luciana) and takes part in other advertising companies that benefited from State contracts.

The last 30 percent of the equity is in the name of Lechado Cruz, a university classmate of the President’s son, who became an operator of these businesses over the years.

The review of the official documents from the contracting in February 2020, related to this same biding of Enatrel, uncovers that the technical criteria in the biding were not complied with, being among them that they should have a private television signal and cable tv with varied programming. Until 2017, they had 22 channels that broadcasted music.

Despite the arguments given for objecting it, the negotiation was closed when Jacobo Castillo, the representative of Canal 8, which is managed by Ortega Murillo, did not plead invalidity of the same.

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Nota Roja-sucesos news, the best-known product from Canal 8, managed by one of Daniel Ortega’s sons.
Photo/Courtesy CONNECTAS

“It is prohibited by law. It is a clear example of influence peddling and conflict of interests”, Valle explains.

Valle describes that the Public Contracting Law prohibits that public server’s relatives, like the President’s children, are offerors of the State. “And the Public Servers Probity Law prohibits the influence-peddling”, she emphasized.

Due to official secrecy and the seize of the entities in charge of supervising the public finances, it has always been difficult to count the millions of the State deposited to the tv channels network that is in the hands of the Nicaraguan presidential couple’s children. }last November, Reuters calculated that they received 29 million dollars in 2019.

Canal 8 contracts, acquired through funds of the Venezuelan cooperation

Before benefiting Difuso by the advertising contract in 2020, Enatrel had awarded another one on marketing to canal 8. The tv broadcaster was purchased with funds from Venezuela’s cooperation in 2010, as confirmed to El Nuevo Diario. by the then director, Rafael Paniagua. A millionaire cooperation flow was administered with discretion by the Nicaraguan executive.

In August 2019, the Biding Committee formed by Bernardo Gomez Cisneros, the contracting specialist of this entity, Hazel Gutierrez, head of press, and Johanna Diaz, the lawyer of the entity, invited to the biding LP-DRP-01-2019, “Marketing service for two 30-second ads in two national tv channels”.

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo, President’s son, is the manager of Canal 8, referred to as director of Telesur by the media and manager of the Company Difuso.
Photo/Courtesy CONNECTAS

On October seventh, 2019, the Biding Committee granted 349.068 dollars to Canal 8 and Canal 13, from the same business circle of President’s children, as per the administrative resolution 16-10-2019, according to an evaluation certificate expressed in local currency and issued by Tania Cordoba, an Enatrel lawyer.

It was the first batch of vignettes in a new biding from Enatrel, targeted to a young audience. The Televisora Nicaragüense, S.A, -legal name of Canal 8- received 285.861 dollars, according to the bidding documents. Canal 13 received 63.207 dollars.

According to local journalistic reports, Roberta Guevara, a lawyer from the government’s party, was a Canal 13 founding partner together with Mohamed Lashtar, former Ortega’s secretary and ambassador in several Arab countries, who, according to Wikileaks cables, was a nephew of the Lybian dictator Muammar Gadafi, a historical supporter of the Sandinista president.

Within this context of lack of transparency, Enatrel increased 14 times its advertising budget between 2018 —the year of opposition protests— and 2019 until summing up to almost half a million dollars. This was neither explained by the State’s entity in the request sent to the spokeswoman of the entity, Hazel Gutierrez, by CONNECTAS.

Public registries show that the companies associated with Ortega’s children were awarded big and small contracts as evidenced in entities such as the airport, tourism, and the Tecnologico Nacional. Another of the benefited tv companies was the Canal 2 news system managed by Maurice Ortega Murillo, another of the President’s children.

Another of the benefited companies is Radio Sandino, which publicly identified itself as the FSLN since the years of striving against Somoza and sharing the same address with Radio Viva FM, La Clasica, and La Tuani in Managua. On behalf of the last three companies, Mrs. Manuella Contreras M. signed with the State at 10 in the morning on March the fifth, 2018. She also entered into a contractual agreement on behalf of Radio Futura.

Details of the mass media contracts

Year Entity Beneficiary company Sum Entry
1 2018 Enatrel Digital entertainment (Tu Nueva Radio Ya) U$10.628 Placement of an ad in 2 newscasts aired for 6 months in two radio stations in AM Y FM (minor procurement procedure 20/2018)
2 2018 Enatrel Nicaraguan radio communications (Radio Sandino) U$5.407 Placement of an ad in the “Al dia con la Sandino” and “Que pasa” newscasts
3 2018 Enatrel International digital communications (Radio La Tuani) U$3.376 Placement of an ad in 4 FM radio stations for 3 months (minor procurement procedure 19/2018)
4 2018 Enatrel International digital communications (Radio Clasica) U$3.376 Placement of an ad in 4 FM radio stations for 3 months (minor procurement procedure19/2018)
5 2018 Enatrel 91. 3 FM (Radio Futura) U$3.376 Placement of an ad in 4 FM radio stations for 3 months (minor procurement procedure19/2018)
6 2018 Enatrel Stereo radio variety shows (Radio Viva FM) U$3.376 Placement of an ad in 4 FM radio stations for 3 months (minor procurement procedure19/2018)
7 2019 Enatrel Televisora Nicaragüense, S.A. (Channel 8) U$285.861 Placement of 2 spots in 2 tv channels (public tender)
8 2019 Enatrel Celeste, S.A (Channel 13) U$63.207 Placement of 2 spots Public tender
9 2018 EAAI Televisora Nicaragüense, S.A. U$41.400 Placement of a vignette ad (selective tendering 25/2018)
10 2018 Inatec Channel 2 U$6.881 Advertising spots (procurement 189-2018)
11 2019 Intur Entretenimiento Digital, S.A. (Radio Ya) U$8.410 Ad spaces (minor procurement procedure 4-2019)
Total U$435.298

Four companies associated with the President’s children’s interests participate in the advertising business. Between 2018 and 2019 they earned 501.531 dollars thanks to some 20 contracts, according to official documents.

The most benefited one has been In & Out Publicidad, a company dedicated to set signs on ways and roads received 251.208 dollars through five contracts between 2018 and 2019. Inatec solely contributed 60 percent of the amount.

The rest of the contracts are distributed between the following companies: Difuso Comunicaciones S.A, Lumicentro, and Negocios Publicitarios Internacionales, which are owned by people identified by Nicaraguan media as members of the presidential family’s inner circle.

Angela Gabriela Garcia Hurtado appears as representative in the contracts of In & Out Publicidad and Lumicentro with the State. In the first one, according to official documents, she is a partner with Mayling Patricia Alegria Doña, a shareholder of Tu Nueva Radio Ya, Canal 8, and a dealer in the gas station networks managed by Rafael Ortega Murillo’s wife, Yadira Leets Marin, who is the owner of this same tv channel.

Jose Maria Enriquez Moncada, a lawyer from the same gas station network, such a profitable business that they were gas and diesel kings until 2019, appears as the owner of 50 percent of the shares from the company Negocios Publicitarios Internacionales.

Details of the advertising companies’ contracts

Year Entity Beneficiary company Sum Entry
1 2020 Enatrel Difuso Comunicaciones U$128.682 Spot in an open signal an cable tv channels (public tender)
2 2018 EPN Negocios Publicitarios Internacionales, S.A. U$15.510 LED screens services (minor procurement procedure 819-2018)
3 2019 EPN Negocios Publicitarios Internacionales, S,A. U$1.763 LED screens at Denis Martinez Stadium (minor procurement procedure 26/2019)
4 2019 EPN Lumicentro U$2.679 Minor procurement, banner printing (procedure 335-2019)
5 2018 Inatec Lumicentro U$45.448 Giant poster and banners purchase (simplified procurement 3-2018)
6 2018 Inatec IN & OUT PUBLICIDAD SOCIEDAD ANONIMA-J0310000176221 U$110.142 Advertising services (simplified procurement 10-2018)
7 2018 Inatec IN & OUT PUBLICIDAD SOCIEDAD ANONIMA-J0310000176221 U$25.135 Billboard rental, printing and installation (simplified procurement 15-2018)
8 2018 Inatec Lumicentro U$11.101 Vignette procurement minor procurement (procedure 595-2018)
9 2019 Inatec IN & OUT PUBLICIDAD SOCIEDAD ANONIMA- J0310000176221 U$2.175 Advertising services
10 2019 Inatec Difuso Comunicaciones U$3.630 Advertising minor procurement (procedure 474-2019)
11 2019 Inatec IN & OUT PUBLICIDAD SOCIEDAD ANONIMA-J0310000176221 U$13.006 Minor procurement, billboard installation (procedure 532-2019)
12 2018 Intur Difuso Comunicaciones U$14.845 LED screens rental, (minor procurement procedure 42-2018)
13 2019 Intur IN & OUT PUBLICIDAD SOCIEDAD ANONIMA-J0310000176221 U$100.750 Road billboards rental (selective tendering 02-2019)
14 2019 Intur Lumicentro U$ 5.784 Banners repair (minor procurement 84-2019)
15 2019 Intur Lumicentro U$19.348 Banner printing (minor procurement procedure 132-2019)
16 2019 Intur Lumicentro U$1.533 Banner printing (190-2019)
Total U$501.531

Local experts argue that these businesses have taken place due to the inefficiency of the Comptroller General of the Republic, in charge of controlling the State powers, but mainly run by officers who identify themselves as Sandinistas.

In 2015, when asked if they have investigated the irregular contracts of the great officials of the Ortega government, the then president of the organ, Luis Angel Montenegro, said that they were not the "Police or the FBI."

Nicaraguan lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, an expert on administrative law, thinks that the Comptroller only informs about the number of contracts it receives and how many it reviews. “It is information of form, not of substance”, she remarks. “I am not interested in knowing which were the results of the contracts they reviewed”, she complains.

Comptroller in the hands of the FSLN

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Maria Jose Mejia Garcia
PRESIDENT

Doctorate in education, lawyer, former penal prosecutor, and former ex-hiring manager from the Comptroller. In 2014, she was appointed as comptroller by the FSLN, party from which she is an activist.

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Marisol Castillo Bellido
MEMBER

Former deputy magistrate in the 2000-2014 Supreme Electoral Council at the suggestion of the FSLN. Retired lieutenant colonel from the army.

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Maria Dolores Aleman Cardenal
MEMBER

MA in international relations and political science graduate. She is the daughter of former president Arnoldo Aleman, Daniel Ortega’s political partner.

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Dr. Vicente Chavez Fajardo
MEMBER

Lawyer, a former member of the State Security, former deputy comptroller between 2001-2014 at the suggestion of FSLN.

Source: CGR





Ortega Murillo S.A.

Rafael Ortega Murillo, the eldest son of the presidential couple, is one of the key men within the power network in Nicaragua.
Photo/Courtesy CONNECTAS

The benefited children

Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have nine children. Just Zoilamerica Ortega Murillo, President’s adopted daughter who accused him of raping her in 1999 and exile in Costa Rica, does not have a position in the companies’ network benefited by the State, in which each of the children fulfills a role.

Rafael Ortega Murillo

He is the eldest son of the marriage, full brother of Zoilamerica. He was born in 1968. The Treasury Department of the United States sanctioned him in December 2019. They signaled him as the “key money manager behind the Ortegas’ unlawful schemes”.

“The Treasury is pointing at Rafael and the companies he owns and uses for money laundering to prop up Ortega’s regime at the expense of the Nicaraguan people”, said at the time Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury.

That December of 2019, with the eldest son of the President as well, three companies were sanctioned: the Distribuidora Nicaragüense de Petroleo (DNP), Inversiones Zanzibar and the security company El Goliat.

The United States accused Ortega Murillo of using the three companies “for making a profit, laundering money and having preferential access to markets for Ortega’s regime”.

The DNP was managed by the wife of Ortega Murillo, Yadira Leets Marin, who is also the owner of 98 percent of Canal 8 shares. The company managed a network of 68 service stations around the country and earned millions from fuel retailing.

Inversiones Zanzibar, other of the companies operating in the shadow of Ortega Murillo, had almost 30 gas station concessions, and the security company El Goliat is one that earned millions of cordobas in public contracts since Ortega returned to power in 2007.

Moreover, Rafael Ortega Murillo is acknowledged for managing Nueva Radio Ya, the popular radio station leading the country’s audiences, and that has belonged for years to the government’s party, the FSLN. Like other AM and FM radio stations, according to these radio stations’ employees were interviewed for this research.

Until the mid-2020s, the President’s son appeared as legal representative for Entretenimiento Digital, a business corporation that manages Radio Ya, according to taxing information.

Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo

He studied Social Communication at Universidad Centroamericana, is a musician, sings in a rock band, and manages Canal 8, tv channel acquired in 2010 and under the name of his sister-in-law Yadira Leets, who has earned millions in public contracts since he manages it. National media identified him as a Telesur directive until 2009.

He also manages Difuso Comunicaciones, a company that invoiced millions to the State for marketing and tv spots, and, that, besides, had a monopoly in Managua to place advertisements on urban transportation buses of the city.

Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo and Difuso were sanctioned by the United States in July 2020. He was “sanctioned for being responsible or partner in crime participating, directly or indirectly, in a transaction or transactions including deceptive practices or corruption”, the Treasury informed in a press release.

Several years ago, Murillo looked at Juan Carlos as if he were the reincarnation of Sandino, the National hero who fought the US marines in the ’30s and expelled them from the country, and whose fight and anti-imperialists ideas Ortega and his party claim to be their inspiration, according to a profile published by Magazine de La Prensa.

Married to Xiomara Blandino, ex-Miss Nicaragua and currently Canal 8 assistant manager, Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo has not been free of controversy. Constantly, he attacks opponents in his social media as well as his father-in-law, who openly opposes and criticizes Ortega’s government.

In the middle of the 2018 crisis, he established a movement called 4 de mayo and took a protest in front of the OAS offices in Managua, and front of the country’s main business chamber offices.

“We come here, in front of this venue that represents the interests of whom have declared themselves as people’s enemies, to them we say, you shall not pass”, Ortega Murillo said in front of the Superior Council of Private Enterprises office, which broke political and economic alliances with the government when social demonstrations broke out on April 2018.

“We remind them that Sandino children neither sell themselves nor give up, ever”, he shouted in front of the business chamber offices.

Laureano Ortega Murillo

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Laureano Ortega, President’s investment advisor, was in charge of the negotiation of the grand canal in Nicaragua. Besides, he is a tenor.
Photo \ La Prensa

He is a tenor and investment advisor to his father. He is an official from Pro Nicaragua, a private-public partnership for bringing more foreign investments into Nicaragua.

In April 2019, the Treasury Department sanctioned him and pointed him out for “being involved in corrupt businesses in which foreign investors paid for preferential access to the Nicaraguan economy”.

The United States pointed this Ortega’s son out for being the promoter of the Inter-oceanic Canal, construction of 50.000 million dollars granted in 2013 with the Chinese entrepreneurial Wang Jing, and has not started yet. Americans specify that “Ortega’s government figures, including Laureano, keep using Nicaragua’s Grand Canal Company as a means for launder money and buy properties along the canal route”.

But, besides, Laureano is a tenor and sings with Italian artists at the Ruben Dario National Theatre. The costs of these concerts have been paid with public monies, as Nicaraguan media has informed.

For many years, the son of the presidential couple owns Fundacion Incanto which receives a budget from the State for its operation.

Camila Ortega Murillo

She is a model and organizes a fashion event called Nicaragua Diseña, which is partly finances with public monies.

Besides, the youngster, born in 1988, acts as an assistant to her mother, Rosario Murillo, at public events. She also runs Canal 13 with her siblings Maurice y Luciana.

Maurice Ortega Murillo

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Maurice Ortega at an event in which his father welcomed Nicolas Maduro, Venezuelan president and ally to Nicaragua’s president.
Photo / Courtesy CONNECTAS

He studied business administration at Universidad Centroamericana and later he studied audiovisuals at Universidad Veritas in Costa Rica. He is married to one of the daughters of Francisco Diaz, first commissioner and chief of the Police.

In 2011, he established Canal 13 with public monies with his sisters Camila y Luciana, but in 2014 he took a new responsibility.

That year, the government took control of Tv Noticias, once the best tv information system in the country in Canal 2. And Maurice Ortega Murillo, who has a low profile, was the one in charge of taking up as head of the new space for the government’s propaganda.

Daniel Edmundo Ortega Murillo he is the first biological child of Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega. He was born in 1980 and runs Canal 4, the FSLN official tv channel. Having a low profile, he is fully dedicated to the tv channel.

Carlos Enrique Ortega Murillo he works with his brother Daniel Edmundo in Canal 4. He is in charge of the technical section in the channel and the baseball broadcasting.

Luciana Ortega Murillo he is the youngest daughter of Daniel Ortega and Murillo. She constantly attends public events with her parents. She works with Camila and Maurice in Canal 13 management.

Ortega Murillo S.A.

Camila Ortega Murillo assists her mother and vice-president Rosario Murillo.
Photo\Courtesy