On Saturday, April 18, 2026, the United States sanctioned the Vice Minister of the Interior of Nicaragua, Luis Roberto Cañas Novoa, for participating in “serious human rights violations,” an action that Washington carries out in memory of the hundreds of victims after the April 2018 protests in the Central American country.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned in a statement that “almost eight years ago, the dictatorship of Rosario Murillo and Daniel Ortega unleashed a brutal wave of repression against Nicaraguans who bravely opposed the regime’s increasing level of tyranny, corruption and abuses.”
“Today, to commemorate the anniversary of the April 2018 protests and remember the more than 325 protesters killed in the subsequent repression, the Trump Administration designates Vice Minister of the Interior, Luis Roberto Cañas Novoa, under Section 7031(c), for his involvement in serious human rights violations,” Rubio added.
Under section 7031(c), Luis Cañas Novoa’s designation includes visa restrictions and a ban on entry into the United States.
Luis Cañas, Murillo’s operator at the MINT
At the end of December 2023, the presidency ordered the National Assembly to eliminate the name of the Ministry of the Interior (Migob) and rename it “Ministry of the Interior (MINT)”as it was called in the 80s, when it was in charge of spying, persecuting, imprisoning and repressing those considered “enemies of the revolution.”
The MINT resurrection was the last stage of a “mutation” process carried out by the dictatorship. By mid-2022, it had already been assigned the power to persecute, confiscate, expel and banish opponents and independent organizations.
With Ortega’s return to power, the former Ministry of the Interior began to be headed by Ana Isabel Morales, who in 2017 was replaced by Maria Amelia Coronel Kinlochformerly Minister Counselor with consular functions at the Nicaraguan Embassy in Panama.
However, the real power in the Ministry of the Interior is exercised by Vice Minister Luis Cañas, a former police officer, who was part of the units specialized in the fight against drugs in the 90s. Cañas is Rosario Murillo’s main operator for the management of the Ministry of the Interior, in which Minister Amelia Coronel has a decorative role.
Luis Cañas is one of the 54 senior Nicaraguan officials identified as responsible for “serious human rights violations” and “crimes against humanity” in Nicaragua, in a report by the UN Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua (GHREN), published on April 3, 2025 in Geneva, Switzerland.
According to GHREN, the vice minister instructed directors of Nicaraguan prisons to obstruct the access of defense lawyers and disobey court orders for release and personal exposure. In addition, he ordered the implementation of a systematic policy of discriminatory treatment against political prisoners, and directs a team to decide whether or not a person enters Nicaragua.
The latest sanctions
On Thursday, April 16, The US Treasury Department sanctioned two sons of the Nicaraguan presidential couple, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, and five individuals, including the vice minister of Energy and Mines.
Thursday’s sanctions also covered seven mining companies, which, like the rest of those identified, have been involved in the extraction of gold in the Central American country and its commercialization.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) explained that all of these entities and individuals “help the Murillo and Ortega dictatorship generate funds and maintain political control in Nicaragua” and are “involved in the forced seizure of properties of US citizens in Nicaragua” linked to the gold sector.
Washington has accused the Ortega-Murillo government of repressing dissidents of his administration. In March 2026, the US mission in Managua denounced that the “cruelty of the regime towards those who dare to raise their voices is unreasonable” and criticized its detention of elderly and sick people.
*With information from EFE.
