NicaNotes

June 11, 2026

By Roger D. Harris and Kelly Nelson

(Roger D. Harris is with the Task Force on the Americas and the Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition. Kelly Nelson is a journalist based in Nicaragua. This article was first published on the Two Worlds blog on June 6, 2026.)

InSight Crime, a thinktank which claims to fuse “investigative journalism with academic rigor,” accuses Nicaragua’s government of “hiring assassins” to hunt down and kill opponents abroad. This bold accusation is based on no more than “circumstantial” evidence, strongly suggesting political motivation. This fact-impoverished rush to judgment reflects a more general bias of the US-aligned corporate press, which seeks to demonize Nicaragua and its Sandinista political leadership.

The focus of the thinktank’s article is the death of Roberto Samcam, a former Nicaraguan army officer, exiled in Costa Rica. He was murdered by gunmen in his home in a gated community in the capital, San Jose, on June 19, 2025. InSight Crime says he was killed because he was “fomenting regime change” in Nicaragua. Supposedly linked to this crime are two failed attempts to murder a Nicaraguan associate, Joao Maldonado, also exiled in Costa Rica and – like Samcam – an opponent of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government.

So far, almost a year after Samcam’s murder, the authorities have made four arrests in the case. All the arrested are Costa Ricans and none have been brought to trial. Keny Navarrete, a Nicaraguan criminal incarcerated in Costa Rica, is said to have coordinated the assassination. Navarette, who has no known connection to Nicaragua’s government, has been serving multiple sentences in Costa Rican prisons since 2016: supposedly he was able to orchestrate the crime from his prison cell.

Samcam’s criminal record

InSight Crime notes in passing that both Samcam and Maldonado were “charged with crimes” in Nicaragua, but nevertheless the author, Steven Dudley, asserts that “Samcam was not a criminal.” Curiously for a prize-winning crime investigator, Dudley completely ignores the real violent crimes carried out by Samcam, Maldonado and the groups they led in the Carazo region of Nicaragua in 2018, during a coup attempt against its Sandinista government. An email to InSight Crime asking why he omitted Samcam’s backstory received no reply.

Roberto Samcam was discharged from the army for corruption. He became a member of the opposition MRS (Movimiento Renovador Sandinista), which in April 2018 organized anti-government protests that quickly became armed blockades of several cities and violent attacks on police, Sandinista sympathizers and ordinary Nicaraguans.

During a “national dialogue,” arranged by the Catholic Church, the Nicaraguan government confined the police to their police stations as part of an agreement to restore peace. However, in Carazo and elsewhere, armed opposition mobs reneged on their side of the deal, laid siege to the police stations and created lawless chaos. Gang members from elsewhere in Central America were even brought into Nicaragua to foment violence.

Samcam was one of the principal agents of the coup attempt in Carazo. He set up and led one of the two armed groups that controlled Carazo from May 17 until July 8; Maldonado and his father controlled the other group. Their headquarters was a Catholic school (Samcam’s wife reportedly bribed the nuns to vacate it). The school quickly became notorious as a prison and torture center where kidnapped Sandinistas and government officials were held.

One of the perpetrators present at the school later confessed his involvement, saying that the opposition leaders “lied to us and manipulated us.” Ferson Castillo, gave a moving account of the murder of his father and brother by opposition groups. Castillo himself was also kidnapped, taken to the Catholic school and tortured. The state of other victims released from the school can be seen in another video.

Another witness recounted how Samcam and other opposition leaders manipulated a visit by representatives of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, blaming murders of known Sandinista sympathizers on government forces. Samcam was later identified, along with Maldonado, as leaders of the group which carried out one of the most horrific crimes of 2018 – the prolonged torture and murder of municipal worker Bismarck Martínez. Samcam reportedly supplied the PKM machine gun used to kill police officers before they eventually liberated Carazo on July 8.

Nicaragua’s foreign minister, Denis Moncada, addressed the assembly of the Organization of American States on July 11, 2018. He presented a detailed report on the violence in Carazo, using it as an example of how Nicaragua had suffered during the coup attempt which was then coming to an end. The report listed eight violent deaths, including two police officers, multiple incidents of kidnapping, rape and torture, an attempt to explode empty fuel tanks positioned next to the police station (which was under siege), and holding hostage around 400 international freight drivers whose trucks were blockaded on the Panamerican highway for many weeks.

Samcam, apparently anticipating legal retribution, fled to Costa Rica three days after Carazo was liberated, never to return to Nicaragua. He was indicted in absentia in a Nicaraguan court in August 2018, along with other ex-military personnel, for the armed attack on the police headquarters in Jinotepe that lasted for 25 days.

The context of the murder

InSight Crime ignores the context for Samcam’s murder in San Jose. In 2025, Costa Rica experienced a massive number of homicides – as InSight Crime had pointed out elsewhere. The country became a “hub for the cocaine trade” run by transnational criminal groups.

Of the 500,000 Nicaraguans living in Costa Rica, only a small proportion are involved in such crime. However, Keny Navarrete, a suspect in the Samcam case, is one of the 10-13% of the prison population that is Nicaraguan. Highlighting the arbitrariness of inferring a political motivation for Samcam’s demise, during 2025 alone more than 90 Nicaraguans were murdered in Costa Rica.

Writing shortly after the murder, we noted that there were indications that – in exile – Samcam had become involved in criminal activities. In any case, his violent past and his reported drug addiction might have given the InSight Crime article author Steven Dudley cause to investigate other possible motivations for his murder.

He who pays the piper calls the tune

Although InSight Crime concedes at the end of the article that its “assertions are difficult to substantiate,” the opening paragraph has already framed the narrative by asserting that Nicaragua’s government murders its political opponents.

This up-front assertion of the Nicaraguan government’s culpability prefaces a one-sided and biased investigation. A glaring factor which InSight Crime has in common with Roberto Samcam, his accomplices in Carazo, and other exiles and opposition media blaming the Nicaraguan government for his assassination, is that they have all received and, in some cases, continue to receive funding from US government-sponsored agencies.

Samcam was listed as receiving money from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 2022. The current NED president, Damon Wilson, recently confirmed that they are funding multiple Nicaraguan opposition groups based in Costa Rica. Beforehand in Carazo, Samcam had worked with the Instituto de Estudios Estratégicos y Políticas Públicas (IEEPP), funded by both the NED and USAID.

InSight Crime is far from an impartial body. The organization and its host institution – the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University – publicly disclose funding from the US State Department and USAID, along with moneys from the British, Swedish, and Canadian governments, in addition to the Open Society Foundations. These relationships are corroborated by official grant databases, tax filings, and funder disclosures.

The central issue is not merely that InSight Crime receives funding; nearly every nonprofit newsroom depends on external financial support. Rather, the concern is that its funding comes from governments and policy-oriented foundations whose strategic interests overlap with Washington’s regime-chang model centered on the US government and its Western allies, together with a major Western privage agenda for Nicaragua. InSight Crime’s IRS Form 990 filings indicate that virtually all of its reported revenue derives from such sources.

A fundinte foundation, is a clear indication of institutional bias. Our article doesn’t answer the question of who murdered Roberto Samcam, but it does address the imbalance created by InSight Crime’s distorted analysis.

Briefs

By Nan McCurdy

6,000 Teachers Training in Inclusive Education

With the participation of more than 6,000 teachers the Inclusive Education Teacher Training Program was launched on June 9^th under the name “Victory of the Revolution.” This program is facilitated by the Ministry of Education (MINED), the National Technological Institute (INATEC), and the Technical Secretariat for University Support (SETEC). The Minister of Education, Mendy Arauz, said that this effort strengthens one of the fundamental achievements of the Sandinista Popular Revolution: guaranteeing education as a fundamental right for all Nicaraguans. She also noted that this is the first joint initiative of the national education system aimed at continuing to create conditions for the specialized training to inclusively serve children and youth from early childhood education to technical training. Marling Carranza, head of Professional Education at INATEC said that the institution is developing 27 courses in special education, providing support and capacity building to teachers from MINED to improve the educational attention given to students with different learning needs. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/2026/06/09/mas-de-6-mil-maestros-afianzan-conocimientos-en-educacion-inclusiva/ (La Primerisima, 9 June 2026)

Nicaragua Defending Interests of Developing Nations at Climate Change Meeting

The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARENA) is participating in person in the 64th Subsidiary Bodies of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held from June 8 to 18, 2026, in Bonn, Germany. At the meeting, the need to strengthen the implementation of the Paris Agreement was highlighted. Emphasis was placed on the importance of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities, increased climate finance, technology transfer, and capacity building for developing countries.

Nicaragua reaffirmed its commitment to defending the interests of developing countries and the need for developed nations to fulfill their commitments regarding financing, technology transfer, and capacity building. The Nicaraguan mission is headed by Vanessa Molina Cruz, director of the projects division at MARENA (Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources). (La Primerisima, 9 June 2026)

Rivas: Leader in Banana and Plantain Production

The department of Rivas is cementing its position as Nicaragua’s banana and plantain powerhouse, accounting for nearly 40% of national production and showing highly favorable prospects for 2026, thanks to the technical and organizational support provided by the National System for Production, Consumption, and Trade. William Delgado, Rivas departmental delegate for the Ministry of Agriculture (MAG), reported on Canal 4’s Revista en Vivo that monitoring conducted in the first months of the year confirms the crop’s strong performance. Between January and March alone, 77 million banana and plantain units were recorded, allowing for projections that by 2026 the record figure of 274 million units reached in 2025 will be surpassed. Delgado emphasized that the increase in productivity is due to the adoption of new agricultural techniques, particularly in seed selection and banana and plantation management. Producers have increased planting density from 1,100 to 2,000 and even up to 2,200 corms per acre, which has significantly increased harvest volumes. The crop has expanded to other departments such as Carazo, Granada, Chinandega, León, and Managua; however, Rivas maintains its national leadership in both volume and production tradition, both on the mainland and on Ometepe Island.

In addition to meeting domestic demand, Nicaraguan plantains maintain a strong presence in Central American markets. They are exported mainly to Honduras and Costa Rica, and have also reached El Salvador and Guatemala. “Nicaraguan plantains are in high demand. We export them and, at the same time, ensure food security in Nicaragua,” Delgado said. The MAG, within the framework of the National System for Production, Consumption, and Trade, provides ongoing technical support through training, specialized certificate programs, field schools, value-added processes, and the strengthening of irrigation systems. On Ometepe Island, the Cuerno Gigante variety predominates, while on the mainland, the CENSA ¾ and Cuerno Enano varieties stand out, both with excellent results in productivity and quality. (Informe Pastran, 8 June 2026)

Health: A Key Area of Russian-Nicaraguan Cooperation

Nicaragua participated in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF); the head of its delegation, Laureano Ortega Murillo, the Nicaraguan presidential advisor for cooperation with Russia, announced new developments in Nicaragua’s progress as a result of his visit to the Eurasian nation.  In an interview with Sputnik, Ortega Murillo explained that health has become one of the key areas of Russian-Nicaraguan cooperation, a dynamic promoted at the SPIEF through a series of meetings with authorities and companies from the host country. The meeting held with the director of Russia’s Federal Medical-Biological Agency, Veronika Skvortsova, served to advance issues such as future shipments to Nicaragua of Russian cancer vaccines. “Nicaragua is participating in clinical trials and will eventually have access to this medication in order to provide cancer treatments to Nicaraguans,” Ortega Murillo said. He highlighted the contribution of the Méchnikov Latin American Institute of Biotechnology—a vaccine production facility using Russian technology based in Managua—to regional health: “the facility continues to produce the influenza vaccine, which is administered annually and free of charge to the Nicaraguan population, and from there it is also distributed throughout the Latin American region. “We are also working with our brothers and sisters on dengue vaccines,” he stated.  And work is underway with the Russian state corporation Rosatom to build a nuclear medicine center in Nicaragua “that can serve Nicaraguans as well as our Central American brothers and sisters.” “We hope to have all the necessary agreements in place to begin construction of this center this year in Nicaragua,” he announced. At the SPIEF, Nicaragua signed a joint action plan with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU)—a common market comprising Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia—to move toward becoming an observer state within this organization. (Informe Pastran, 8 June 2026)

Global Franchises Affirm Nicaragua’s Economic Stability

The dynamism of the Nicaraguan economy has reached a new milestone with the announcement of the registration of global giants in the food and service sector, such as Panda Express, Starbucks, Wendy’s, and the expansion of KFC. The arrival of these global mega-franchises is not an isolated event, but rather the direct result of solid macroeconomic indicators and a highly predictable business climate that places the country on the radar of major international corporations. Unlike other markets in the region, Nicaragua currently offers exceptional macroeconomic conditions that minimize exchange rate and operational risk for multinational companies.

The entry of these brands demonstrates the existence of a domestic market with rapidly expanding consumer spending capacity. The success of global corporations validates Nicaragua as a safe destination for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in other sectors such as tourism, industry, and real estate. Furthermore, the macroeconomic impact will be strongly felt in the generation of formal employment and technological advancements. (Informe Pastran, 9 June 2026)