Amid the co-presidential dictatorship’s crackdown on Bayardo Arce, the feared former head of State Security and a key figure in the Sandinista repressive apparatus, Lenin Cerna abandoned his residence on Monday, July 28, to avoid arrest. Sources close to Cerna confirmed that his home in Managua was taken over by police forces after his personal security detail was expelled.
“Lenin is in hiding. He’s moving between safe houses with his wife, Marisol Castillo. The lights in his house have been off since Monday,” the source said. “He went into hiding, and when the police came looking for him, he was already gone. He fled as soon as he saw what was happening to Bayardo (Arce). He knows Rosario (Murillo) has always had her eye on him.”
The legal action initiated by the Office of the Attorney General (PGR) against Arce, followed by his arrest, has alarmed prominent members of the old Sandinista guard who are at odds with Vice President Murillo—particularly Cerna and Francisco “Chico” López Centeno, both loyal to Ortega but, according to Sandinista sources, seen by Murillo as obstacles to her dynastic succession plans.
The rift between Cerna and Murillo goes back years. He was ousted from the inner circle of power in 2011 by the vice president herself. That year, Murillo forcibly removed him from the El Carmen complex, where Cerna had an office at the Sandinista Front’s Secretariat. The scene was widely interpreted as a direct humiliation of the Sandinista old guard and symbolized the beginning of Murillo’s centralized grip on power.
The fallout was rooted in a corruption investigation at the General Revenue Directorate (DGI), in which Cerna was implicated. The probe was led by Néstor Moncada Lau, Cerna’s former subordinate in the State Security Directorate (DGSE). Murillo used the scandal to promote Moncada, who went on to become her most trusted intelligence chief, effectively pushing Cerna into political exile.
Though Cerna appeared to have been erased from the official stage, multiple sources told DIVERGENTES that he was quietly reintegrated into intelligence operations after the 2018 political crisis, under Moncada’s coordination and with Cuban advisor support. He was even allegedly involved in the regime-controlled gold trade, an activity that led to sanctions against him by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Still, his return did little to heal his fractured relationship with Murillo, who continued to keep him out of the public eye and has now launched a full-scale hunt against him.