This is an investigative report on a largely unknown key figure behind the repression.
Luis Cañas, the powerful Vice Minister of the Ortega-Murillo repression
By DIVERGENTES, Aug 12, 2022
Removed from the National Police in 2007 after being linked to cases of corruption, Luis Cañas has emerged as one of the men who has the most trust of the presidential couple, to such an extent that he is the true power in the Ministry of the Interior, where he holds the post of Vice Minister and is responsible for decapitating NGOs, set up intelligence inside the State and even cancelling passports. In addition, he was part of the team that led “Operation Clean up” in 2018 along with Nestor Moncada Lau, the right hand of Daniel Ortega.
The Vice Minister of the Interior, Luis Cañas, speaks slowly and “is not liked very much” by the leadership of the National Police. Officers “put up with him” because since 2015 he has established himself as a powerful functionary who responds directly to Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo in the Ministry of the Interior (MIGOB). “The police chiefs do not like Cañas´ orders, but they cannot do much,” a police source told DIVERGENTES, emphasizing that the former commissioner Cañas was removed from the institution for “reasons linked to corruption” at the end of the Government of Enrique Bolaños when the director of the agents was Aminta Granera.
Cañas has gained prominence since the fall of Ana Isabel Morales in 2016 as Minister of the Interior. As vice minister he took up the principal reins of this ministry which currently is one of the sharpest points of spear of repression of the regime: in that department massive cancelations of NGOs in Nicaragua have been concocted and ordered.
“They do not like him in the National Police because from his post (in the Interior) he wants to run the institution and he is not looked well upon. He conspires over the head of the chief and at times is unscrupulous. In simple terms he is a problematic person,” said a police source.
The power of MIGOB under the control of Cañas was strengthened this Thursday with the reform of the General Law for the Regulation and Control of Non-Profit Organizations (Law 1115), which empowers the institution to authorize and cancel legal status through ministerial decrees. It is a more direct and discretional process because it does not go through the Parliament, also under the control of party sympathizers. What is most alarming is the fact that the new disposition expands the concept of non-profit organizations to religious, charity, social, cultural, educational, sports and even business chambers and associations…so that control of the Ortega-Murillos through their operator in MIGOB will be more direct.
Cañas has been responsible for criminalizing different organizations from MIGOB, like the extinct Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation and its director, the now political prisoner Cristiana Chamorro. The Department of Non-Profit Civil Associations has been the entity that has provided the arguments to the Parliament to decapitate the more than 1,700 non- governmental organizations since 2018 after the social protests.
The principal mastermind behind this hunt down of NGOs, which now includes business associations, has been Cañas, a former commissioner with great experience in police intelligence. His rise has been shielded by the coming of the presidential couple themselves, leaving the Minister, María Amelia Coronel Kinloch, as an ornamental figure.
“From his position Cañas controls all the ministries, embassies, Police and repression apparatus that act outside the law, even a group (of paramilitary leadership and coordination) which was formed in 2018 and remains today, even though smaller in numbers,” says another source very close to MIGOB.
Through Migration and Immigration, Cañas also has absolute control over the movement of people inside and outside the country, as a migration source has confirmed for DIVERGENTES. “He has been responsible for those who have not been able to leave and those who do not have passports, obviously in agreement with El Carmen,” said the contact in Migration, in reference to the home and presidential offices of the Ortega-Murillos.
Given his vast experience as an intelligence official, Cañas has formed a network of informants inside public institutions to monitor state workers, above all after the desertion of some figures in the Ministry of Foreign Relations and other institutions.
“Cañas works closely with Fidel Moreno, the right hand of Rosario Murillo. He has become the most feared figure among State workers for two reasons…first, because he has at his disposition an impressive intelligence network that informs him of everything that is happening in institutions, and secondly and more importantly, he has the capacity to act with the full backing of Rosario Murillo and quash any person who he considers a threat,” related the source linked to MIGOB.
DIVERGENTES consulted eight sources – from the Sandinista party, migration, Ministry of the Interior and police – to compare information about Cañas. All agree that the Vice Minister “is above all the person of trust of Rosario Murillo in the Ministry of the Interior,” at the same time “he is close to Moncada Lau,“ the shadow and right hand of Daniel Ortega in El Carmen.
Moncada Lau is another powerful former policeman trained in intelligence, whose decisions remain hidden. His history of loyalty as the “private secretary” of Ortega has been shrouded by important controversies, with the most recent being the payment and recruitment of paramilitaries. After the departure of Cañas from the Police in 2007, Moncada Lau identified him as a useful element for the Ortega-Murillo circuit because of his skills in intelligence.
A commissioner investigated for corruption
Luis Cañas was born into a poor family in El Sauce, León. He joined the ranks of the Sandinista Front in the seventies as a combatant. Even though he was not as outstanding as others he was disciplined and orderly, say Sandinista sources who knew him well. This helped him win the favor of his superiors at that time, says Julio [pseudonym], a police source who knows the career of the Vice Minister of MIGOB within the institution.
“He was a founder of the Police. From his beginnings he entered the work in the area of criminal investigation and was very good,” states the police source. His function in this police department was dismantling criminal bands that worked on stealing cars or motorcycles.
In the 80s the work of Cañas was effective and silent. His personality at that time allowed him to impress or have an impact on his superiors, to the point of being taken into account when they did promotions within the Police.
The big leap of Cañas in the Police happened in 1992, when Leonel Espinoza was named assistant director of the National Police. Although the passage of the commissioner was short-lived, he was able to place Cañas in the area of drug investigations. “He was valuable to the Police at that time. His specialty of drug investigator allowed him to be transferred to Matagalpa where he was named the second provincial chief under the command of commissioner Evenor Gutiérrez”, said Julio.
The second officer of Matagalpa was a breaking point in the police life of Cañas. He was linked with several cases of corruption in that police department and ended up being investigated for several denouncements that his superiors received. A note in El Nuevo Diario, published on September 18, 2020 refers to the fact that the First Commissioner Franco Montealegre ordered an investigation against Cañas and Gutiérrez over the acquisition of farms, luxury vehicles and even being partners in enterprises without explaining the origin of those funds.
The leaks that got to the National Police specified that Gutiérrez and Cañas supposedly had connections with the Centeno Roque brothers, accused in that same year of crimes of fraud, embezzlement, falsification of public documents, association and instigation to commit crimes.
“As payment for favors received on the part of the Centeno Roque brothers, Gutiérrez and Cañas ordered ongoing monitoring of the companies of the business owners. Supposedly for that monitoring the Centeno Roque brothers were paying 30,000 córdobas a month at the rate of 2,500 córdobas for each policeman who was assigned to monitor the mills and offices,” explains the informational article.
Julio says that the investigation was carried out, but strangely, even though there was proof, Cañas was not given a dishonorable discharge. On the contrary, he was called to Managua to supervise the area of police intelligence on a national level.
Concerning that investigation, the police chief at that time, Edwin Cordero, said that Cañas was investigated by the Inspector General, when that office was under the responsibility of Commissioner Cristhian Munguía. “He was investigated and no connection was found with what was mentioned. So far we continue to trust that Commissioner Cañas was not involved in that,” maintained Cordero.
The fall of Cañas and pickpocketing
Luis Cañas in an event with the former US ambassador, Laura Dogu
Cañas was transferred to Managua in 2001 when the Police were under the command of Edwin Cordero. The first commissioner was another important pillar in the police career of the current Vice Minister of the Interior. He was the one who ensured to some extent that those who were demanding performance, conduct and ethics of Cañas where no longer in charge.
While he was in charge of the area of police intelligence on the national level, Cañas also had good relations with those who formed part of State Security in the 80s. All his experience on that level allowed him to have a lot of power within the institution.
“He was under general commissioner Carlos Palacios. Cañas was flying high at that time. He did things on his own. He was not accountable, and those attitudes aroused jealousy among his peers. That is how he was accused of behaving as a pickpocket in the breakups of criminal or drug gangs,” narrates Julio to DIVERGENTES, whose testimony agrees with other police sources who were in the institution at that time.
Cañas also formed a great friendship with major commissioner Carlos Bendaña. “At that time, after the triumph of President Bolaños, there was the issue of the institutionality of the Police and its apartisan nature. Cañas perceived that he had to join one side and began to lobby. So it is that he gets close to Bendaña. While he was introverted, less impulsive, the major commissioner was extroverted and hyperactive. They formed a good pair,” pointed out Julio.
That friendship with Bendaña and the fact of belonging to the group that supported Ana Julia Guido, the current General Attorney of the Republic, to be the Chief of the National Police, caused the fall of Cañas within the police institution. Aminta Granera sent him into retirement in 2007.
“It was a succession of events. When the Polanco case happened. Cañas was very close to Bendaña. And Bendaña was the owner of the weapon that they used to kill the businessman Jerónimo Polanco. Both were part of the group that supported Guido to be chief of Police. When Granera arrived, she made the decision to do a cleanup,” related Julio. The chief of Police at that time decided that it was best to watch her back, because the current Vice Minister of MIGOB had a lot of power from his position. Nevertheless, he was not investigated for any act of corruption.
Resentful but loyal
Luis Cañas (blue shirt) in an event along with Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
“Cañas left resentful of the Police,” stated Julio and two other police sources consulted by DIVERGENTES. “Life as a civilian is the worst thing that can happen to any police chief who still has many years of career left within the institution,” he said.
Before being Vice Minister of MIGOB, Cañas spent eight years “in the street” but maintained contact with the group of the retired major commissioner Carlos Bendaña. Another source connected to the National Police said that Cañas supported himself carrying out police and political intelligence work for the Sandinista Front, especially making connections with Sandinista historical former combatants.
Cañas built a group of former combatants for whom he also sought medical and economic support. The result of that mission would be fundamental for the Sandinista regime in 2018 when they armed paramilitaries to repress the civic protests that year.
“He never lost communication with Bendaña or the former State Security people. He continued connected to Néstor Moncada Lau who he knew when he was in the Police in the area of economic investigations, between 1990 and 1992,” said the police sources, who maintained that Moncada Lau really liked how Cañas worked within the institution.
The resignation of the former Vice Minister of the Interior, Carlos Nájar, in 2015 created an opening for Cañas to rise to an important position within the Ortega-Murillo government. Moncada Lau recommended him because of his history within the Police, the knowledge and experience that he had acquired in those years, and the low profile that he maintained when they retired him from the police institution. “Such was the effectiveness of his work to move at the margins, that as of today the United States has not sanctioned him,” said the source at MIGOB.