(Reuters) -The Nicaraguan government has confiscated properties belonging to an influential businessman living in exile, the entrepreneur said on Friday, after he was reportedly declared a “traitor” to the country and stripped of his citizenship this year.
Piero Coen Ubilla, who heads agribusiness-to-money-transfer conglomerate Grupo Coen, said in a statement that properties registered in his and his wife’s names were seized by police early Friday morning.
The seizure marks the first such targeting of a business figure of his stature under President Daniel Ortega’s administration.
Coen has been an outspoken critic of Ortega since anti-government protests broke out in 2018. He left the country for Guatemala in 2021.
The businessman was recently found to be a “traitor” to the Central American country in a 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.
Coen said he had “not been part of any legal process, nor been informed of any kind of process which would justify” the seizures.
“I can assure you all, there is no crime of which I can be accused, much less a crime against my country or Nicaraguan society,” Coen added.
Nicaraguan judicial representatives did not immediately respond to a request 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 an attempt 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 and Jacqueline Wong)
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