President Daniel Ortega appointed the engineer José Mojica Mejía, one of the main figureheads of the private company network of the Ortega Murillo family, as a member of the Advisory Council of the board of directors of the International Airports Administration Company (EAAI), in a series of published designations in the gazette number 35 of this Tuesday, February 22.
In presidential agreement 17-2022, the EAAI Advisory Council has been made up of 13 members, including Mojica Mejía; the son of the presidential couple Laureano Ortega Murillo, investment advisor to the Executive, and the director of the Police, the first commissioner Francisco Díaz Madriz, the president’s in-law.
The figurehead of the government’s businesses is a partner of the Nicaraguan Petroleum Distributor, was on the board of directors of the Digital International Communications company (CODISA), was a representative of Telenica Channel 8, as well as of Inmobiliaria Cocibolca, according to a research posted last weekend. The only official response has been silence or intimidation.
CONFIDENTIAL revealed the existence of a group of 22 companies controlled by the presidential family through figureheads such as Mojica Mejía, the lawyer José María Enríquez Moncada, Eduardo Germán Morales Cuadra, Mayling Patricia Alegría Doña, Yessenia María Enríquez Guido, Paula de los Ángeles Aguilar and Mario Jose Gonzalez Garcia.
The group’s areas of business interest are telecommunications, oil, media, advertising and construction. The investigation represents a partial portrait of business at the expense of the State or with Venezuelan cooperation.
His capital grew like foam
Mojica Mejía’s career was published in June 2010 in the national media. He sold newspapers when he was a child and because of his efforts he went to Cuba to study with a scholarship, his acquaintances said at the time. He later specialized in telecommunications in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).
Linked to the Ortega, his capital grew like foam. It was sanctioned by the United States in July 2020 when the Treasury Department punished another son of the presidential couple, Juan Carlos Ortega Murillo, current director of Telenica Channel 8.
Mojica Mejía’s participation became more active over time. But his name came to light when he worked directly on the installations of the presidential event platforms. Mojica is credited with fulfilling the presidential order to destroy the old musical fountain near the facilities of the Nicaraguan Institute of Culture in Managua.
According to journalistic publications, Mojica Mejía appears to be associated with the security company El Goliat, which benefits from State contracts, but also with Sydicom, Syditek, Unitec, the unknown Proyectos y Logísticos SA already tourist companies. He appeared as a partner of the Yota company in June 2009 through the company Telecomunicaciones de Nicaragua, SA (Telnicsa), in which his counterpart was the presidential lawyer José María Enríquez Moncada.
When the US Treasury sanctioned Mojica, it described him as a “personal representative of the Ortegas” and as the creator of a money laundering mechanism to divert funds from companies managed by the eldest presidential son, Rafael Ortega Murillo.
“Mojica’s mechanism involved the use of cash originating from company checks payable to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MTI) of Nicaragua. The checks were cashed in cash and the money was stored on the MTI premises for the regime’s personal use,” says the american resolution.
In 2011, another journalistic investigation by the newspaper La Prensa revealed that the Empreconsa briefcase company, linked to Mojica employees, received a contract for one million dollars precisely from the EAAI to sell some ramp equipment. For months CONFIDENTIAL has tried to establish contact with Mojica Mejía, but he did not respond to our queries.
The EAAI directive
According to Ortega’s executive agreement, the other members of the EAAI advisory council are the Director of Immigration, Commander Juan Emilio Rivas, the former Minister of Health Sonia Castro, the Director of the Tourism Institute Anasha Campbell, Brigadier General Spiro Bassi Aguilar , head of the Nicaraguan Air Force, the director of Customs Eddy Medrano. There are also two representatives from the Caribbean (Arturo Hooker and Nadezdha Fenly Mejía) and TThomas Valdez Rodriguez on behalf of the “private sector”.
Valdez Rodríguez is director of the official pollster Siglo Nuevo, and is best known because, together with his brother, the late Rafael Valdez, he led a smear campaign against the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio José Báez, who has been in exile since 2019. by decision of Pope Francis after receiving threats from Sandinista fanatics.
In the same official newspaper of the State of Nicaragua, Ortega also appointed the members of the EAAI board of directors, in which technical staff such as the general manager of the company, Aleyda Isabel Molina Lacayo, the director of Aeronautics Carlos Salazar Sánchez, the Capital Market Advisor of the Ministry of Finance Carlos Selva Hernández, the Deputy Minister of the Interior Luis Roberto Cañas Novoa and William Ramírez Avendaña representing the private sector.
