Ortega Declares 12 Confiscated Properties “Public Works”
“Las Colinas” Sports and Recreation Club, the Samuel Foundation and the Chinandega 2001 Foundation are some of the many properties confiscated by the dictatorship.
HAVANA TIMES – At least twelve properties, most of them belonging to cancelled NGOs, were confiscated and reopened as supposed public works in the first 61 days of 2025. The latest stolen property scheduled for re-inauguration as a “public service,” is the Hostal El Central, confiscated from journalist Henry Briceño. Briceño was detained and forcibly taken to the Costa Rican border with his wife and two children, then banished on November 24, 2024. Now the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo will inaugurate the Sacuanjoche Hemodialysis Center at the site of the small business he owned.
This is the second property stolen from the journalist that was inaugurated by the dictatorship as public property. On January 10, 2025, the regime installed a branch of their “White Cross” [Ortega-Murillo regime’s alternative to the Red Cross which they expelled from Nicaragua in December 2023] in the house where Briceño lived for more than 20 years, but which at the time of the confiscation he had rented out.
On February 26, 2025, the “Ciro Molina”National Physical Therapy Center was inaugurated in Las Colinas, Managua. The supposed physical therapy center managed by the Ministry of Health took over the site of the cancelled Club Campestre Sports and Recreation Club.
The Club Campestre joined an estimated 5,600 non-profit organizations that the regime has shuttered since 2018. The legal status of the Club Camperstre and eight other associations were announced in 2021, for alleged non-compliance and violations to the law – the same allegations made to almost all the non-governmental organizations the regime has outlawed.
In Managua, a Technological Center was installed in a branch of the Samuel Foundation, which was stripped of its legal status in June 2024. In August of that year, the NGO reported that some land and part of their inventory had, been seized, together with their training center. Now, on February 12, 2025, Nicaragua’s National Technological Institute (Inatec), together with the Managua mayor’s office, inaugurated the educational center as if it were a new space the dictatorship had created.
“This is number 70 nationally and 15th for the department of Managua (…) Here, there’s an investment in equipment, in trained personnel, and infrastructure improvements. More than 35 million cordobas [US $951,000 dollars] are at the disposal of families and youth.” Loyda Barreda, director of Inatec, stated.
Another property that was confiscated and slated for re-branding in the next few days is the “Dr. Juan Ignacio Gutiérrez Sacasa” National Oncology Center, installed on the campus of the Central American Institute of Business Administration, shuttered in September 2023.
Five properties confiscated in the north
In Matagalpa, three properties belonging to the Catholic Diocese of Matagalpa were confiscated: the Pastoral Center La Cartuja, the Episcopal Curia and the “San Luis Gonzaga” Advanced Philosophy Seminary. The regime has announced that the Pastoral Center will now become the site of the a Regional University Center for Agricultural Export Technology.
It was also announced that the Curia, which was cleared and painted white at the beginning of February, will be handed over to the Matagalpa branch of the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS).
The plan for converting the Seminary, where some 30 students were evicted at the end of January, is still unknown. It’s also not clear what justification served as an excuse to have the Public Prosecutor, together with the National Police, take possession of this property. The only canceled NGO tied to this Catholic diocese is the Matagalpa branch of the Catholic charity Caritas, closed on August 12, 2024.
In San Rafael del Norte, a town in Jinotega department, the Nazareth Clinic was seized, according to local media outlet Mosaico CSI. The takeover of the clinic was also carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office, together with the National Police. This medical center was run by the Nazareth Association for Integral Family Development, which has not lost its legal status.
Also in Jinotega, the office and eight vehicles property of the Odorico D’ Andrea Foundation, cancelled in August 2024, were confiscated, according to the newspaper La Prensa. The source reported that the Foundation’s computers, bank accounts and a plot of land located in a nearby community were also seized.
Chinandega mayor’s office steals three properties
In Chinandega, a theater, a museum and a branch of the National Agrarian University were inaugurated by Mayor Aura Lila Padilla. All three properties were confiscated from NGOs in January 2025.
The first “new” work to be inaugurated was the University Center for Agricultural and Agro-export Technologies, installed in the former Convent of the Order of St. Clare, nuns known as Clarisas, who were abruptly expelled on January 28, 2025. The Order had its legal status cancelled in May 2023.
On the same day, the theater and museum were inaugurated, both within the “Complejo Betania”, formerly belonging to the Chinandega 2001 Foundation, cancelled by the regime on January 29, 2025, for allegedly “obstructing the control and surveillance of the General Directorate of Registration and Control of Non-Profit Organizations”.
The dictatorship has registered some of the confiscated properties as belonging to public institutions, in an attempt to “legitimize” the seizures. However, after their ostentatious inaugurations, some of these new installations cease functioning, as happened with the offices stolen from CONFIDENCIAL. A supposed maternal center was inaugurated there, but three years later the property was found closed and deteriorated. When the exiled media outlet published a photo showing the abandoned state of their former property, the clinic was “resuscitated” within a brief few hours.
First published by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.