15 de noviembre 2022
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A chain of corruption scandals in the southern cities of Rivas and Diriamba, mainly linked to litigation and appropriation of valuable properties, has shaken the intermediate structures of the Sandinista Front and has left in its wake: the fall of a magistrate of the Judicial Branch; the forced resignation of a mayor and the suicide of another; the dismissal of a political secretary; and the removal and partial imprisonment of red-black officials and political operators.
Faithful to its authoritarian style, the Government party has handled these cases without transparency, applying sanctions and removals decided by the FSLN political secretariat, under the charge of the powerful security advisor of the presidential couple, Néstor Moncada Lau.
The institutions that by law should be looking into these matters, have kept silent or have only been mere executors of the orders coming from El Carmen. The National Police has not issued a single press release on these incidents, nor has the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (CGR).
Sources linked to the ruling party commented to CONFIDENCIAL that the issue is handled directly by the leadership of Orteguismo, and that it has only been revealed that the "purge" is orchestrated directly by Moncada Lau, and is related to the dispute of valuable coastal properties in the areas of Carazo and Rivas.
The mayor of Rivas, Wilfredo López Hernández, and deputy mayor Esperanza Núñez , during an activity in October 2020. They were removed in a session lasting less than 30 minutes by disposition of the dictatorship. Photo: Confidencial | Archive.
Other versions add that in the midst of the conflict over the properties, there is also an internal struggle between Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo for power in the Sandinista Front, a dispute that for the moment has leaned in favor of the dictator's wife.
The last head that has "rolled" because of this struggle is that of former judge Ileana Pérez, who was president of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court and was in charge of the southern district, corresponding to Rivas and Granada, and where legal processes on valuable coastal properties and cases linked to drug trafficking were being heard.
Former judge Pérez was considered a staunch supporter of Ortega. Sources familiar with her situation told CONFIDENCIAL that, during her last days as a magistrate, Pérez devoted herself to "cleaning traces" in the public records about "movements" on her and her associates' behalf. They also assured that there were "pages torn out of the books" of the records related to this issue.
Scandal started with the property of a drug trafficker
The thread of corruption began with a situation that directly involved the former judge. In August 2021, Perez ordered the removal of the then-public property registrar of Rivas, Pedro Muñoz Carranza.
The reason: Muñoz Carranza's refusal to register a valuable property, valued at more than US$200,000, in favor of Emilio Chang López, a civil judge in Rivas, and Pérez's brother.
The property had been seized by the police from drug trafficker Luis Medina Amoretti, who was killed by hitmen in Costa Rica in 2014. The former judge replaced the registrar with Jeiner Alexander Herrera Condega, who months later, proceeded to register the property in the name of Chang López.
Rivas mayor's office intervene
The scandal was uncovered in February 2022. That month, the Sandinista Front intervened the Mayor's Office of Rivas through the Economic Investigations Directorate of the National Police and the Municipal Development Institute (Inifom).
The Sandinista mayor of Rivas, Wilfredo López Hernández, a local leader who enthusiastically supported the failed interoceanic canal project in 2014, was suspended from his post.
Key mayoral officials were also forced to resign: project manager Doyler Balmaceda, planning chief Martha Hernández, project director Ernesto Barrios, and the municipality's legal advisor Carlos Molina.
That same month, the former magistrate was taken to the headquarters of the Dirección de Auxilio Judicial (DAJ) in Managua, known as El Chipote, to be interrogated about the registration of the property in favor of her brother. Both Pérez's house and Judge Chang's were raided by the Economic Police.
However, the incident went no further. Perez was released and her brother was reassigned as a Criminal District Trial Judge in Somoto, Madriz. Neither the Police nor the Supreme Court of Justice reported on these operations and movements.
One mayor arrested and another forced to resign
The internal investigations of the Sandinista Front continued, always under secrecy and more secrecy. The former deputy of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and former mayor of San Juan del Sur, Gerardo Miranda Obregón, was detained for eight days in April 2022 in the jail of El Chipote, accused of being allegedly involved in "several extortion and human trafficking activities" in the area of Tola, Rivas, and for "conspiring with historical Sandinismo" against Murillo.
The Rivas mayor's office remained vacant and intervened by Inifom until July 11, when López Hernández was forced to resign under pressure from the Sandinista Front.
The resignation took place during an extraordinary session, convened that same day and which lasted only 30 minutes. The Municipal Council also accepted the resignation of deputy mayor Esperanza Núñez.
Political secretary investigated for property crimes
The impact of this upheaval also hit Carazo, mainly the city of Diriamba. On August 18, the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) issued a notice informing that Osman Alexander Cardoza Bello was under investigation for "crimes against property". This citizen served as political secretary of the FSLN in the departments of Rivas, Carazo, Granada and Masaya.
The notice also reported that Cardoza was stripped of his privileges as a lawyer and notary public. That same week, it was known that Inifom intervened the Mayor's Office of Diriamba and suspended the then Sandinista mayor of the city, Fernando Baltodano, from his duties. Three of his closest collaborators were also dismissed.
Sources close to the case informed that the investigation was linked to alleged acts of corruption in the Rivas and Diriamba mayor's offices. In the case of López Hernández it was for alleged embezzlement of funds assigned to the Bismarck Martínez housing project. While Mayor Baltodano was suspended for irregularities in the issuance of checks.
However, in the midst of these alleged mismanagement of public resources, the issue of the coastal properties in Rivas and Carazo, for which the political secretary Cardoza Bello was being investigated, would be in the background.
FSLN sources in Carazo confirmed to CONFIDENCIAL that Cardoza Bello was detained for several days, until he was released and removed from his party post.
"Until some time ago he was considered the strong man of the Sandinista party in these departments and he was in charge of measuring the ribs of all the mayors in the area", indicated a party source in Rivas.
The circular signed by Rubén Montenegro, secretary of the CSJ, sends an official letter to the General Directorate of Registry and Control of Lawyers and Notaries, to cancel the registration number 32565, corresponding to Cardoza Bello. In addition, it requests the disqualification of any pending proceedings and the removal of his name from the Judicial Power's database.
Mayor Fernando Baltodano Velásquez during an activity of the municipality of Diriambina, last December. Photo: Taken from 19 Digital
Mayor Fernando Baltodano "commits suicide"
The corruption thread took a darker turn in the case of Mayor Baltodano. On August 27, his corpse was found inside his truck, at a point on the Diriamba-La Boquita highway. The official had a bullet wound to the head.
A photograph of the corpse circulated in social networks, in which the mayor appears seated in front of the steering wheel of his vehicle and clutching a pistol with both hands. The image unleashed a wave of speculation among the residents of Diriamba, who believe that Baltodano was murdered.
The National Police did not say anything about the incident until two days after the body was found. It did so after Murillo -in her midday monologues- pronounced herself on the case and insinuated that the Sandinista mayor "committed suicide", since he supposedly suffered from "depression" problems, which led him to take "a tragic and painful decision".
"He had been suffering from ailments. We all know how difficult it is to deal with diminished spirits, with depression. That depression led him to make that fatal decision," Murillo said. Subsequently, the Police ratified Murillo's information and marked the incident as a suicide, closing the case.
On July 8, 2018, Baltodano was accused by residents of Diriamba of being one of the organizers -along with Mayor Mariano Madrigal, of Jinotepe- of the "Operation Cleanup" in Carazo, where more than 20 citizens were killed at the hands of police and paramilitaries in the context of protests demanding the departure from power of Ortega and Murillo.
He was also accused of coordinating, on July 9, 2018, the attack by Ortega mobs and paramilitaries against Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes; the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Monsignor Silvio Baez; and the then Apostolic Nuncio in Nicaragua, Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, when they arrived at the Minor Basilica of San Sebastian, in Diriamba, to free a group of young people who were taking refuge in the church, surrounded by paramilitaries of the Ortega regime.
Fifteen days after Baltodano's death, the Sandinista Front imposed his son, Harold Antonio Baltodano Cruz, as candidate for mayor of Diriamba, on a ticket with the current deputy mayor, Mayling Figueroa Argüello, who was promoted to that position after the strange death of the Sandinista mayor. Both were "elected" this November 6, in the aftermath of the electoral farce with which the FSLN won all 153 mayoralties in the country.
Former magistrate Ileana Perez, forced to resign due to corruption scandals that began in Rivas. Photo: Confidencial | Archivo.
The Ortega "purge" in Rivas reaches Managua
The purges within the Sandinista Front did not stop with the death of Mayor Baltodano and the fall of the political secretary of Rivas and Carazo, and reached Managua, more precisely to the heart of the Judicial Power.
An internal hunt unleashed by the Sandinista Front in the Supreme Court of Justice implied the forced resignation by "superior orders" of Katia Jaentschke Acevedo and Ruth Tapia Roa, director of International Relations and Protocol, respectively, of the Judicial Power and the imprisonment of the spokesperson of the Judicial Power, Roberto Larios. Days later, Magistrate Ileana Perez was once again in the middle of the power struggle within the red-black party.
Despite having survived an investigation and interrogations in El Chipote last February, the aftermath of what happened in Rivas and Carazo finally hit the magistrate loyal to dictator Daniel Ortega.
On October 20, it became known that Magistrate Ileana Perez was demoted by "superior orders" from the FSLN Secretariat. She had police custody at home and no longer exercised any authority in the Judiciary.
This article was originally published in Spanish in Confidencial and translated by our staff.
