US sanctions two children of Nicaraguan presidential couple

The United States on Thursday announced sanctions against two sons of Nicaragua's presidential couple, both of whom hold government posts, as well as several enterprises involved with gold mining in the Central American country.

Washington has branded the government of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and co-president, Rosario Murillo, a dictatorship, accusing it of seizing total power with a constitutional rewrite and crushing dissent.

The US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Maurice Facundo Ortega Murillo, who serves as Nicaragua's presidential delegate for sports, and Daniel Edmundo Ortega Murillo, who oversees Managua's government communications.

The State Department said in a statement regarding the sanctions that the Ortega-Murillo presidency "has continually consolidated its illegitimate power into the first family's hands, anointing their children as dictatorship officials to carry out their dynastic objectives." 

"Since 2020, the dictatorship has restructured the gold sector into a complex network of front companies and intermediaries designed to generate foreign currency, launder sanctioned assets, and reinforce political control for their own benefit," the State Department added.

The sanctions, which prevents those named from conducting business or holding assets in the United States, extend to five other individuals and seven businesses connected to Nicaragua's gold mining industry. 

Nicaragua's Minister of Energy and Mines Salvador Mansell has also been under US sanctions since 2021.