(Reuters) – The Nicaraguan government has confiscated properties belonging to an influential businessman living in exile who had been declared a “traitor” to the country and stripped of his citizenship earlier this year, local media reported on Friday.
The seizure would be the first targeting such a prominent business figure under President Daniel Ortega’s administration.
Piero Coen Ubilla, who heads agribusiness-to-money-transfer conglomerate Grupo Coen, has been an outspoken critic of Ortega since anti-government protests broke out in 2018. He left the country for Guatemala in 2021.
Nicaraguan police seized two of Coen’s homes, local media said Friday. Coen was found a “traitor” to the country in a recent trial that also stripped him of his citizenship and ordered the confiscation of all real estate he owned, newspaper Confidencial reported.
The government may have also seized Coen’s stakes in several Nicaraguan companies, according to reports.
Reuters found a criminal case was opened against Coen at the end of March, though a verdict was not publicly available.
Neither Coen nor Nicaraguan judicial representatives immediately responded to requests for comment.
The 2018 protests and government crackdown left more than 300 dead and hundreds in jail, according to human rights organizations’ tallies. The government says around 200 died.
Ortega’s supporters called the protests a guise by the president’s opponents to incite a coup.
Human rights groups say Ortega has in recent years repressed opposition politicians, news outlets, business leaders and the Catholic Church, which acted as a mediator during the protests.
Earlier this year in a surprise move, Ortega freed more than 200 political prisoners and flew them to the United States, saying he wished to rid Nicaragua of criminal provocateurs who undermine the country’s safety.
(Reporting by Ismael Lopez, Writing by Kylie Madry; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
