’Orlando’ exposes to ’Confidencial’ the spiral of corruption that involves a company registered in Miami and the Nicaraguan authorities
14ymedio, Madrid, 15 July 2024 — “This is a mafia, it’s like a Netflix or Hollywood movie.” This is how forceful a former official of the Administrative Company of International Airports of Nicaragua (EAAI) is, who, under condition of anonymity, reveals to two media —Confidencial and Esta Semana — how the trafficking of migrants from Managua to the United States operates through charter flights, largely involving Cubans.
In an interview published on Monday with Carlos Fernando Chamorro, founder and director of both media – which work from exile after President Daniel Ortega shut them down – the former official, an expert in airport services who calls himself “Orlando,” points to the company Easy Aviation, registered in Miami, Florida, as the main link in a whole spiral of corruption. This involves not only the airlines, but the EAAI itself, the Management of Migration and Civil Aeronautics.
“They use the institutions that are supposed to be serious to do something illicit, such as the transport of migrants who arrive in an irregular way,” says Orlando. He was in charge of the coordination and execution of the ground operation of both commercial and charter flights and resigned his position last year because of “discomfort with the management.”
“They use the institutions that are supposed to be serious to carry out something illicit, such as the transport of migrants who arrive in an irregular way”
According to his testimony, it all began in 2021, “with a Havana-Managua airlift to transport thousands of Cuban migrants to the United States, and has continued uninterruptedly for four years, diversifying with intercontinental flights.”
The date provided by Orlando coincides with the agreement between Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel and his Nicaraguan counterpart to allow the entry of Cuban nationals into the Central American country without a visa. The announcement came at the end of November of that year, after the frustrated Civic March for Change and four months after the historic demonstrations of 11J [11 July 2021], and was the starting signal of the greatest exodus in the history of Cuba.
At first, Orlando explains, charter flights in Nicaragua took place “in the context of the pandemic,” to repatriate American and European citizens to their countries or Nicaraguans who were abroad and had been stranded when commercial flights were closed due to COVID-19. Afterwards, there began to be “flights from the Caribbean, with mainly Cuban citizens, who came to Nicaragua to do shopping tourism, according to what was proposed to us in the meetings before handling these flights.”
It soon became clear to them that Cubans were not going to Managua for that purpose: “Several months later, all the workers already knew that the main reason for the entry was the trampoline to the United States.” As an example, he says that the planes arrived completely full, “with 150 Cuban passengers and only five returned, maximum ten.” The nationals of the Island, his story continues, “were amazed to see the refrigerators full of food. So we now knew that they didn’t come to do shopping tourism, because of the way they behaved.”
“They were amazed to see the refrigerators full of food. So we now knew that they didn’t come to do shopping tourism, because of the way they behaved”
Every day there were “at least” five flights between 50 and 1