The former presidential daughter-in-law and former manager of DNP Petronic, Yadira Leets Marín, is in the United States with her two daughters, after leaving Panama, where they had lived since the beginning of this year.
Leets Marín, ex-wife of Rafael Ortega Murillo, eldest son of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, left the environment of the ruling family at the beginning of 2022.
Official sources in Panama confirmed to CONFIDENCIAL that Leets Marín and her two daughters, Ariana and Libia Ortega Leets, arrived in the canal country on separate flights between January and February 2022. Later, on May 9, they left together for Atlanta, United States.
Yadira Leets Marín was the first member of the Ortega Murillo family to be incorporated into the management of the family businesses that arose under the protection of the diversion of funds derived from the oil agreement with Venezuela, which reached 5 billion dollars between 2007 and 2016. , according to figures from the Central Bank.
Her appointment as administrator and signatory of the fuel supply contracts of the Nicaraguan Petroleum Distributor (DNP) represented the beginning of the involvement of the members of the Ortega Murillo family in different private businesses that flourished mainly due to their supply agreements to the State.
Yadira Leets Marín was also in charge of Inversiones Zanzibar, the company created by Ortega operators to manage the gas station network that distributes fuels imported by the DNP.
In addition, since 2015, Yadira Leets Marín was the president of CODISA, a company made up of the Sandino, La Tuani, Futura, Clásica and Viva FM radio stations.
An investigation by CONFIDENCIAL published on February 20, 2022, revealed the existence of 22 private companies, in the name of 18 company executives and five lawyers —all close to the presidential family— that are part of a business network that grew exponential after Ortega’s return to power, underpinned by the private appropriation of the millionaire state cooperation from Venezuela.
In that scheme, Yadira Leets Marín was listed as a shareholder or director in five of these companies linked to the Ortega and Murillo family.
In December 2019, then-US Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin announced economic sanctions against Rafael Ortega, whom he described as the key administrator of the Nicaraguan regime’s “illicit financial scheme.” The US authorities also sanctioned the DNP and Inversiones Zanzibar, however, Yadira Leets Marín was not sanctioned by the US Department of the Treasury.
The sanctions forced the closure of the gas station network managed by Inversiones Zanzibar. Some have managed to reopen under the “white flag” concept, that is, they operate independently of a large fuel import company.
Leets was manager of the DNP until 2018.
In December 2019, the DNP had to be rescued by the Ortega regime to avoid its collapse, due to sanctions. Making use of its deputies and its collaborator allies in the National Assembly, the DNP was nationalized and its assets came to be managed by the Ministry of Energy and Mines.
