Nica Police Arrest Bayardo Arce and “He Will Be Prosecuted”
Police raid the home of Bayardo Arce, a historic Sandinista commander, after he was summoned by the Attorney General’s Office and allegedly defied the order.
HAVANA TIMES – The National Police, acting in service of the Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo regime, raided the home of presidential economic advisor Bayardo Arce Castaño and arrested him, according to a report by Confidencial. According to sources, the property was entered by agents from the Directorate of Special Operations at midnight on Wednesday, July 30, 2025—just five hours after the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) officially summoned him to respond to alleged irregular transactions involving properties and companies.
Residents of southern Villa Fontana, in Managua, told Confidencial that they saw a convoy of trucks forcefully entering the home of the historic commander of the Sandinista revolution. Arce’s whereabouts remain unknown.
The PGR stated in a press release that Arce had refused to cooperate and that “failing to comply with or disrespecting these civic obligations constitutes serious crimes that warrant prosecution.” In this way, the threat became reality.
The PGR, led by Wendy Morales Urbina, had issued a statement hours before the operation, revealing that it was investigating the current presidential economic advisor — a post he has held since Daniel Ortega’s return to power in 2007 — for operating outside the legal framework of the state.
According to the statement, his assistant, Ricardo Bonilla, was previously arrested after refusing to cooperate with the investigation and remains under interrogation in the National Penitentiary System.
The state institution accuses Arce of refusing to answer a financial investigation that links him to properties and deals that do not meet the country’s legal requirements. In his defense, Arce reportedly claimed that all the properties under investigation belong to him and that he does not recognize the authority of the PGR. The institution responded that his noncompliance constitutes a serious crime.
Bayardo Arce thus joins a list of former revolutionary commanders investigated or repressed by the very regime they once served. Other emblematic cases include former army chief Humberto Ortega, who died in 2024 while under house arrest, and Henry Ruiz, who remains under house arrest.
According to political analyst Oscar Rene Vargas, Arce’s downfall reflects the “authoritarian transition of power” being carried out by Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega, aimed at consolidating absolute control of the executive branch — possibly with a view to passing power to a family successor.
Vargas claims the purges began at the lower levels of power and have been climbing toward figures increasingly close to Ortega’s inner circle. Initially, it was judges, prosecutors, and former judicial officials; then figures like Carlos Fonseca Terán; and now key former members of the FSLN’s National Directorate, such as Humberto Ortega, Henry Ruiz, and Bayardo Arce.
“This isn’t an isolated purge. It’s part of a systematic strategy to eliminate anyone who might question the succession of Murillo or her son, Laureano Ortega,” explained Vargas, author of Checkmate, a book recently published on Amazon that documents the disintegration of the Sandinista regime.
Vargas says the FSLN model increasingly resembles the collapse of Eastern European communist regimes. “A foreign military intervention isn’t necessary. The collapse can come from within, due to internal fractures and breakdowns in loyalty.”
In this sense, the purges are not solving the problem but worsening it says Vargas. “Repression does not stop the implosion—it only accelerates it. They are going after pastors, priests, journalists, and ex-military members. That creates fissures, not cohesion.”
First published in Spanish by 100% Noticias and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
The revolution continues to eat it’s own. I have little sympathy for any of them.