View of the facade of the central building of the Nicaraguan Institute of Social Security (INSS) in Managua // Photo: Facebook INSS
Since August 2024, dictator Daniel Ortega has donated some 93 properties to the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (INSS), according to a review by CONFIDENCIAL. For 89 of the properties donated, the regime has concealed the location, measurements, and land registry numbers. According to real estate brokers and economists, this indicates that the properties are illegally confiscated and that the dictatorship wants to avoid public claims from their legitimate owners.
“These are assets obtained in an illicit manner. Such is the case of my property, which was transferred to INSS by a presidential agreement as a result of an illicit confiscation,” claims economist and former political prisoner Juan Sebastián Chamorro, who was stripped of his nationality and confiscated of his assets in February 2023.
The property Chamorro is referring to is the “Zompopera little island”, which was donated to INSS through Presidential Agreement 135-2024 and published in the official public register La Gaceta on August 9, 2024. In this case the dictatorship did report the details of this property, such as the measurements (3704.75 square meters) and the land registry number (“property number 18331, volume 830, folio 166, entry 4º of the Public Registry of Property of Granada”).
That same day, Ortega donated another 69 properties to INSS, concealing the relevant information and indicating only what are called Absolute Property Numbers and the respective provinces where they are located: Estelí, Managua and Rivas.
During his eighteen consecutive years of rule, Ortega has given away at least 557 properties to more than a dozen institutions and municipalities. In more than 90% of these donations, the regime has detailed the locations, measurements, boundaries, land registry numbers and other data, according to a CONFIDENTIAL database.
The 93 donations to the INSS have been made through twelve presidential agreements published on three different dates in 2024 and 2025:
72 properties were donated on August 9, 2024.
14 properties were donated on January 22, 2025.
7 properties were donated on February 25, 2025.
According to the presidential agreements, most of the properties are located in the provinces of Estelí (41) and Managua (34). Next is Rivas with eight, followed by Jinotega with five, and Granada with three. Masaya and Carazo each had one property donated.
Government conceals data to avoid owner complaints
The dictatorship justifies these donations saying they have been carried out “with the purpose of strengthening the Social Security of all Nicaraguans by creating policies and strategies aimed at increasing the social security coverage of workers and their families and strengthening the institutional capacity for the implementation of projects.”
However, Chamorro and economist Enrique Sáenz agree that the goal is to legitimize an illegal activity, in this case the confiscation of properties.
A real estate broker, who asked for anonymity, commented that by “suppressing” such “primary” data as location, boundaries and measurements, the government avoids “any public claims” from the legitimate owners of the properties.
“It is uncommon to transfer a property without specifying its location or measurements. It's only done when you want to hide something,” said the expert.
Juan Sebastián Chamorro pointed out that “part of the strategy of naming these properties with a secret nomenclature or one that only they know”, is to “make it easier to raid and sell.”
These properties have only been identified with a code generated by the Integrated Land Property Registration System which is under the control of the Attorney General's office, the institution in charge of implementing the confiscations.
“Everything in Nicaragua, and properties in general, are known in terms of whose are and who they have belonged to. So, in that sense, this measure [of concealing the information] is not sustainable,” according to Chamorro.
Chamorro added that the function of the transfer of properties to the INSS is so that “third party purchasers can buy them clean and in good faith.”
For Saenz, one of the goals of these donations is “to give some kind of cover to the theft of properties by giving it a social function or saying it is for collective benefit, when the owners of these assets are not publicly revealed. Most of them undoubtedly come from the dispossession of properties from victims of the dictatorship.”
Since 2018, the dictatorship has expropriated and confiscated hundreds of assets owned by citizens, businesses, media, NGOs, universities, business associations and churches.
Up through mid-2024, the preliminary estimated value of the hundreds of private property confiscations ordered by the FSLN government since 2018 was some US$250 million, according to calculations published in an investigation by the Pro-Transparency and Anti-Corruption Observatory (OPTA).
The properties do not reduce INSS’ financial deficit
Saenz said that these donations do not solve Social Security's financial problem, since “the reasons –or roots– of INSS' chronic deficit lie elsewhere.”
“Even if one could imagine someone coming and buying all [those 93 properties] at once, it would just be like a liter of serum or blood for a sick person who cannot fend for himself,” said Saenz.
Although the regime doesn't officially recognize it, INSS has been suffering from “technical bankruptcy” for many years. In 2025, INSS’ estimated deficit will be US$97 million (about 3.5 billion córdobas at the official exchange rate).
“It's not through the transfer of real estate properties and their sale –however valuable they may be– that INSS’ problem will be solved, because this is a structural problem generated by excessive administrative spending, abuses, corruption or bad investments,” said Chamorro.
Saenz, a researcher at the Bridges for Development Foundation, explained that these properties are incorporated as “fixed assets” of INSS, which only helps “from an accounting point of view” since it will now have more assets, but the properties don't generate any income or benefit “in terms of financial flow.”
“Since there is no data that would help estimate the amount, nor information about the properties that would help to calculate how much they could be sold for, it doesn't address or solve the INSS crisis. It's a band-aid on a hemorrhage,” said Saenz.
The Social Security crisis lies in the fact that “it does not receive enough income to cover its expenses,” said the economist, who explained that the origin of the deficit is an economic model that does not generate sufficient or profitable formal jobs, has “inflated” administrative expenses, and suffers from chronic corruption.
“Any reform to INSS would be confiscatory because it means increasing workers' contributions, decreasing benefits, decreasing pensions again, and increasing employers' contributions,” Saenz emphasized.
Only two properties in 17 years
In his first 17 years in power, Ortega had donated only two properties to INSS: one in October 2021, and the other in May 2023, according to the CONFIDENCIAL database.
The first donated property, with an area of almost 1,879 square meters, is located in Barrio San Antonio, in District I of Managua, according to Presidential Agreement 170-2021, published in La Gaceta of October 7, 2021.
The second lot, with an area of 2,123.9 square meters, was donated for “the operation” of the “Julio Buitrago” INSS branch, according to Presidential Agreement 45-2023, published in La Gaceta of May 3, 2023. The property is located in Barrio Dignidad 4 de Mayo, in the capital city.
Up until the recent 93 donated properties, INSS was one of the institutions that had received the least amount of real estate from Ortega. The Nicaraguan Army is the largest beneficiary of land, with 190 lots, according to an investigation by CONFIDENCIAL.
This article was originally published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated by our staff. To get the most relevant news from our English coverage delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to The Dispatch.