On March 21, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control designated Nicaragua’s Attorney General Wendy Carolina Morales Urbina for supporting the Ortega-Murillo regime and being complicit in its acts of oppression. According to OFAC, Morales Urbina, who was appointed to the role of Attorney General by President Ortega in 2019, has been responsible for helping the regime steal real property from independent media outlets, international organizations and political prisoners. In February 2023, President Ortego expelled 222 political prisoners from Nicaragua, stripped their Nicaraguan citizenship, and put them on a flight to Washington DC. Following the incident, Morales Urbina carried out the dispossession of all properties belonging to the 222 political prisoners. She has also allegedly seized property from new owners in various private buildings after declaring that they were made for public use and seized property belonging to thousands of non-governmental organizations using laws designed to suppress freedom of association.
The designation was imposed pursuant to Executive Order 13851, as amended, which targets those who support the Nicaraguan regime or are complicit in the regime’s suppression of political prisoners and civil society within the country. As a result of this designation, all property and interests in property of the designee within the United States or within the possession or control of a U.S. person are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions involving the designated persons. Entities owned 50 percent or more by one or more designated persons are also blocked.