He must have smelled my novelty as I walked through Granada’s streets from the Central Park toward Calle Saint Lucia to view my apartment for the first time.

As I turned the key in the front gate to check out my new abode, a strange man appeared at my side. Then again, I had only been in the country for less than a day, so all Nicaraguan men—and women and children, for that matter—where strangers to me.

“Buenos dias. Me llamo Carlos,” and he said in Spanish, “I work for the company Esperanza and I am here to repair a leak.”

Confused, I stared at skeptically as I surveyed his seemingly legitimate white-collared Esperanza polo shirt.

“No thank you. I don’t know who you are and was told not to let anyone in,” I said, explaining that it was my first day in town and that the owner was back in the United States for the week.

I closed the heavy wooden door behind me and, reprieved from the presumptive repairman, explored my new apartment, walking through its spacious rooms enriched with extravagant wood detailing, tiled floors and exotic plants.

But as I was touring the house, I almost slipped on a stream of water trickling out from underneath the closed door of the laundry room. A leak! Maybe that guy really is here to fix a leak, I wondered.

The self-styled handyman was still outside the front gate, chatting with passersby on the street. I could hear him talking about the owner of the house, referring to her by name.

Maybe he is legitimate, I thought, as my guilt tugged at my gringo conscience for having closed the door on him.

I finally caved and opened the door. I have heard stories and words of caution about letting strangers into the house, but I didn’t want to be a jerk. Plus, he knew about the leak and the owner of the house—and I was the newbie.

I watched as “Carlos” made his way to the laundry room, lifted my roommate’s clothes out of the puddle on the floor and surveyed the scene.

“I need to buy a part to fix this,” he said, asking me for $10.

I told him I didn’t have any money on me, which was true. Plus, I didn’t have the right to authorize any repairs. So I watched as he fiddled idly with some parts in the laundry room.

Though on guard and wary of the stranger, I took a quick bathroom break. When I returned two minutes later, he was not where I left him in the laundry room. I quickly searched the house and found him in my roommate’s bedroom, loitering near her bags. He had forced entry by breaking the lock on her bedroom door–something I learned later.

“I am looking for a key to find a part that’s here,” he said, after I asked what he was doing.

His hand revealed a small white pipe and though I desperately wanted to believe him, my gut told me this had gotten too weird and it was time to ask him to leave. In the next moments I wrestled with my guilt, not wanting to treat him like a criminal. But this was not my apartment and so I decided to push aside any shame and asked him flat out: “Did you take anything?”

“No, no! Respeto,” he said, taken aback as he lifted up his shirt as proof.

I knew I was now treading on uncomfortable terrain, but I had to make sure. “I want to see your pockets,” I said. He blushed and told me he did not feel comfortable doing that but I persisted and patted them anyway. Feeling a few bumps, I put my hand in his pocket and he pulled away.

“I can take you to my company to show you. I am a supervisor,” he said as I locked up the house and agreed to follow him to his office, somewhere downtown. As I tried to follow him down the street, he sped away on his bicycle. I yelled for him to wait.

“I will show you my company, but I want to get a juice first,” he yelled behind him, as he pedaled away. Then, just as suddenly as Carlos had appeared at my door, he disappeared in Granada’s maze of hazy and colorfully punctuated streets.

After I contacted my roommate in the U.S. to tell her what happened, she contacted the repair company and was told that no one fitting Carlos’ description said he worked for, but they said there was no one fitting that description on their staff. So he was a thief.

Having worked in the largest slums of Kenya and reported in Cambodia for a year, I consider myself a rather seasoned traveler in developing countries. But my first experience in Nicaragua was something new for me; it crossed the line from the typical petty theft/ opportunistic street crime to something more insidious, guilt-oriented, personalized and manipulative. I’ve never experienced a scam like that before.

I had wanted to trust “Carlos” and tried not to fall into the role of suspicious foreigner who is mistrusting of the locals. But yesterday reminded me that it’s also a bad idea to idealize situations and be naïve.

Carlos preyed on me because he saw me as gullible gringa—someone who would feel guilty about suspicious prejudices.

I am not certain how often this type of thing occurs here, but I do know that I felt violated in an ignorant way and will keep my guard raised higher from now on. Though I am a friendly person who wants to meet new people and form trusting relationships with Nicaraguans and foreigners alike, it’s clear that “be careful” should not be taken lightly. And I thank Carlos for his intrusive reminder.

Claire Luke is a journalist interning with The Nicaragua Dispatch

Nathan Fouts (courtesy photo)

Nathan Fouts, who arrived to Nicaragua on May 6 as part of a Pentecostal mission trip to help build a youth camp in Matagalpa, drowned three days later while swimming with friends somewhere off Nicaragua’s Pacific coast, said Fouts’ brother-in-law, Jake Hillen, who spoke on behalf of the family. Hillen was unclear about where the accident occurred. The U.S. Embassy did not answer a request for more specific information by press time.

“He couldn’t feel the bottom. The missionary tried to help everyone out of the water, but when they did a head count, they realized Nathan was still out there,” Hillen told The Nicaragua Dispatch today in a phone interview from Kentucky.

Fouts was later pulled ashore by a surfer and rushed to a hospital, but he “didn’t make it,” Hillen said.

Fouts’ family says Nicaraguan investigators told them turbulent waters were caused by a small earthquake off the coast of Costa Rica.

Fouts worked as a minister at churches in Kentucky and Indianapolis after graduating from Bible school nearly a year ago. His trip to Nicaragua with the group Abundant Life Missions International was scheduled to last less than one week, just enough to get a taste for on-the-ground missionary work, Hillen says.

“Nathan wrote a note in his Bible with goals he wanted to complete in his life,” Hillen said. “He wanted to work with young people to bring them to know Christ and inspire others to do the same.”

To honor his memory, Fouts’ heart was buried in a tabernacle at the youth camp being built in Matagalpa. Fouts is survived by his sister Jessica, 23, his mother Michelle, and his father Timothy, who is a pastor in Kentucky.

“Costa Rica loses with this move—they are going to miss out on tourism, economic development and port infrastructure,” Pastora told The Nicaragua Dispatch in an interview this afternoon. “If Costa Ricans are happy because the canal is going to be built further north of the border, it’s because their xenophobia is bigger than Irazú Volcano.”

The six proposed canal routes (No. 6 is out)

Pastora said the original plan of widening the Río San Juan into the hemisphere’s second inter-oceanic canal would have brought massive bi-national development to the border region between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The Río San Juan route—on of six proposed alternatives for the Nicaraguan Canal—would have converted part of Costa Rica’s Sarapiquí River into a lake, finally giving Costa Rica “its own great lake,” Pastora said, alluding to Costa Rica’s perceived historical aspirations to appropriate Nicaragua’s Lake Cocibolca.

“But now they lose all that. So if any Costa Ricans are happy about the decision, it’s because they are ignorant,” Pastora said.

Costa Rica’s Foreign Ministry this week expressed its approval with Nicaragua’s decision to not pursue plans to use the Río San Juan as the proposed route for the inter-oceanic canal. On May 13, Nicaragua’s Foreign Ministry wrote a diplomatic missive to its Costa Rican counterpart explaining that based on preliminary studies conducted by the Chinese company HK Nicaragua Canal Development Investment Co. Ltd, the Sandinista government has decided to forgo plans to build the canal along their border river, and instead pursue an unspecified alternative route “in the north of the South Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAS).”

View of the 2-kilometer start to the original Nicaraguan Canal, built by U.S.-industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt in the 19th century. To date, this is the closest Nicaragua has gotten to fulfilling its inter-oceanic canal dreams (photo/ Tim Rogers)

Sandinista authorities, who have been developing the early phases of Nicaragua’s canal plans with the same secrecy that characterizes all their business dealings, promised to inform Costa Rica about the exact canal route “when the time comes.”

Pastora, meanwhile, thinks Nicaragua’s time finally has come after centuries of ventose and delusional talk about building a canal, which is now estimated to cost $35 billion—or three times more than Nicaragua’s Gross Domestic Product. The scope of the project may seem unlikely in a country like Nicaragua, but Pastora is confident the world would be a better place with second canal across Central America.

“It sounds like a lot of money for a small country like ours, but for the rest of the world—China, Japan, Russia, the U.S., Korea, and Europe—$30 billion is peanuts,” said the former guerilla leader, who has been spearheading the Sandinista government’s river dredging efforts along the border with Costa Rica.

“The stars are finally aligning for us to build the canal,” Pastora said. “And as sure as the sun shines, it will happen.”

The U.S. military detachment at the U.S. Embassy in Managua today donated $96,000 worth of parachute equipment to the Nicaraguan Army’s Special Operations Unit.

The donation, which includes 50 parachutes, altimeters and neon jump lights, will help strengthen the Nicaraguan Army’s operation capacity and contribute to joint security efforts in the region, according to a U.S. Embassy press release.

Having concluded its eight-month “La Calaca” tour last month, Nicaragua’s funky-jazzy-electro-chichero music sensation known as “Momotombo” is starting a new tour to promote their forthcoming third disc.

The concert tour kicks off Thursday May 16 at Managua’s Uruk Kalli bar (Managua address: “Donde fue Trafic”) at 10 p.m. Cover is 100 cordobas.

Larry Scott Hartman in police custody (photo/ PN)

U.S. conman Lawrence Scott Hartman Grosser, sought by Interpol since 2009, was handed over to U.S. law enforcement officials this morning at Nicaragua’s Augusto C. Sandino International Airport and deported to the United States to face charges of money-laundering and fraud.

Hartman, who will face criminal proceedings in Florida for allegedly defrauding hundreds of English and Spanish investors out of some $300 million, was captured in Nicaragua on April 25 while reportedly trying to commit an unspecified “fraudulent request” at Nicaragua’s central immigration office in Managua.

The New York-native reportedly had foreign residency in Costa Rica, and had been living in the neighboring country for an unknown number of years. He entered Nicaragua illegally across the Peñas Blancas border crossing on April 22, according to police.

Nicaraguan police reportedly identified Hartman by cross-checking his fingerprints with Interpol records, according to a statement from law authorities. Hartman is the second U.S. fugitive captured by Nicaraguan police in the past month.

After 45 years of toiling as an entrepreneur to develop a successful chain of family-owned hardware stores in Estelí, Roberto Moncada, 69, watched in horror as all he has worked for his entire life seemed to come crashing down around him last Sunday morning.

For reasons still unknown to him, Moncada, the longtime president of Estelí’s Chamber of Commerce, was targeted by Nicaraguan Police as part of a series of weekend raids on more than 30 homes and businesses in Nicaragua’s “second city.” The raid on Moncada’s home, which he qualifies as “illegal, arrogant, and in complete violation of human rights,” was done without any judicial order or explanation by police.

 “The police had no court order and did not explain what they were doing when they raided my house,” Moncada told The Nicaragua Dispatch in a phone interview this afternoon, a day after getting released from jail. “They took over my house and ordered my whole family to sit in the living room while they went from room to room; no one was allowed to use the bathroom and my daughter wasn’t even allowed to feed her baby, which made me really angry.”

Moncada, whose family owns and runs three “Moncada Nicaragua” hardware stores in Estelí, says he tried to explain to police that they had the wrong house and the wrong guy. But they wouldn’t listen to him. The officers then became surly when Moncada told them he knew his rights.

“They were totally arrogant,” Moncada says.

 After boxing up all his paperwork and personal files from his home office, the police confiscated $6,500 in cash—the weekly profits from one of his hardware stores, which Moncada says his wife was keeping in the house to deposit in the bank on Monday.

“As the officers were leading me out of the house, one of them—in a mocking tone—gave my wife six cordobas ($.24)and told her to go get something to eat,” Moncada says.

Moncada was taken downtown to the police station and put in a holding cell, without charges or explanation.  He was soon joined by other local businessmen who had also been swept up by police.

Moncada also learned that his farm had been raided as part of the operation.

“At my quinta in Santa Cruz, the officers held the wife of my caretaker up against the wall— and then they went into the kitchen and ate all the food that she had prepared for the day; it was totally undignified,” Moncada says.

By late Sunday night, the Sandinista mayor of Estelí intervened on behalf of Moncada and the other detainees and called President Daniel Ortega to tell him what was happening. Ortega reportedly called the chief of police and ordered Moncada and the others to be released immediately.

“I was let out of jail and given all my personal effects,” Moncada says. “The police hadn’t even opened any of the boxes or looked at any of the documents they had confiscated from my house.”

All 12 people who were arrested in Sunday’s police raids were freed late Sunday night and Monday morning. The spokesman for the National Police says all the suspects were picked up for routine questioning as part of the police’s ongoing efforts to provide citizen security.

Moncada, who has already received a personal phone call from Police Commissioner Aminta Granera asking for his forgiveness, says the Estelí Chamber of Commerce supports the police’s work to provide security and public safety in Nicaragua. But he says the police really botched this one.

 “For a major operation like this, the police should first make sure they have some real information to act on,” Moncada says. “But this was done all wrong. It was an abuse of authority.”

The problem, the businessman says, is that the Managua police officers sent to Estelí to conduct the raids showed complete distain for everyone involved.

 “They think we are so stupid that all our money must come from selling drugs,” Moncada says. “They think that if we have any money, or if we are seen driving a new car, it must mean that we are dealing in illegal drugs because we’re too stupid to make money legitimately through a successful business.”

“Well they were wrong about me,” Moncada said. “I have been working in business all my life, and I’ve never had a problem with the law before. I am very well known and respected here in town.”

Estelí, Moncada says, has worked hard to become known as “Nicaragua’s second city” for its rapid economic development in recent years. He says the city, considered the economic capital of the north, is full of honest, hard-working people who are trying to bring progress, development and investment to their city.

The businessman says the Estelí Chamber of Commerce met today to discuss the situation is going to demand a public apology from the National Police.

“The police are obligated to go after organized crime—that’s their job and we are totally supportive of that,” Moncada said. “But we are trying to create a business climate for investment and growth in Estelí, and they just threw our reputation on the ground.”

Most university students right now are enjoying their summer break. Those who recently graduated are probably out looking for jobs, if they haven’t found one already. 

But a group of students from Brigham Young University are on a different mission this summer: they are touring Central America to share cultural dances from the South Pacific, North America, and Latin America.

The Living Legends group is comprised of students who hail from each of featured ethnic groups and cultures of the Pacific Islands (Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga). After recent performances in Guatemala and Honduras, their tour will end with two performances in Managua on May 15- 16. The dance performance will be held at the Rubén Darío National Theater at 7:30 pm. Entrance is $7.

I lived in Nicaragua for a couple years and enjoyed immersing myself in the local culture and getting to know the people. I believe this is a great opportunity for Nicaraguans to get a small glimpse of my Polynesian culture and find that similarities abound even among people with different cultures and languages.

For more information, visit their webpage—the names of the dances the group will be performing can be found under the title “Repertoire,” on the left column of their home page.

Everyone should learn at least some Spanish if you plan to live here. As expats, we came here to experience a new culture—and language is an important part of that culture. And while frustrating at times, it is both fun and satisfying to learn another language. You will, however, discover a few roadblocks on the path to learning.

It is surprising how few expats speak much Spanish, and how few foreigners are fluent. Even many of the men who marry Nicaraguan women speak little or no Spanish. (So much for pillow talk and intimate conversations helping the learning curve.) Many expats who do speak Spanish are limited to the present tense or simple conjugations.

One of my greatest disappointments living here has been my lack of fluency in Spanish after six years of calling Nicaragua home, though I know much more now than before. My wife and I are still taking Spanish lessons once a week, but comprehension has been the greatest problem. We have accumulated more Spanish dictionaries (picture and word), encyclopedias, grammar guides and other reference materials than most universities in Managua.

For us, learning Spanish has been slightly more difficult than becoming a nuclear physicist. Assuming you have a background in math and science, you could become a nuclear physicist in two to six years. But for an older expat, it takes much longer than that to become fluent in Spanish. Many times, during corporate projects in my former career, someone would state “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do this”. Well, I would venture that being a rocket science is easier than learning Spanish.

To begin the process of learning Spanish as a second language, you need to set high goals for yourself— like wanting to have a meaningful conversation with your neighbor’s three-year old child. This is what we call a moving goal since the child will be six by the time you reach a three-year-old level of proficiency.

The first step to speaking Spanish is to buy a good English-Spanish dictionary, which will distinguish you from the expats who refuse to learn. There is a dizzying array of dictionaries available. Right away you will discover there are Spanish-English dictionaries and English-Spanish dictionaries. The latter is for English speakers to learn Spanish. Yes, they are different product entirely.

You will need to balance practicality against a comprehensive source of information. A small pocket dictionary is easy to carry around, but it will have far fewer words in it—and never the words you are looking for. The voluminous dictionaries are comprehensive but, due to their weight, must be left on the coffee table and require 30 minutes of page-flipping to hunt for a single word. Also, for older expats, you may want to consider buying a dictionary with larger print. We discovered the best solution was simply to buy 10 different dictionaries and now we can never find any of them when we need to look for a word.

Since this is the 21st century, you may want to try using a dictionary app on your IPhone, IPad or Android device. We tried that, but if you don’t know the spelling of a word you get totally lost. Then there is the app where you just point your device at a Spanish sign and it comes up with the equivalent English translation. Cute, but hardly effective! I do use a couple IPad apps that act like flash cards to reinforce verbs and their conjugation.

OK, we have set our lofty goals and purchased our dictionaries. Now on to the lesson plan. The experts tell us the best way to learn another language are:

• Have a Latin lover

I approached this concept with an open and academic mind, but my wife had a violent reaction to the idea. People in the know call this the “horizontal dictionary.”

• Watch telenovelas (Spanish soap operas)

I tried this for a while and I could grasp what they were saying without understanding the words. Some of the episodes got me excited but I discovered it had nothing to do with learning Spanish.

• Total immersion

This is the best way by far. Upon first coming to Nicaragua we did a two-week immersion in Estelí. Four hours of class each morning with homework that took several hours each day. The family we stayed with forced us to continue using Spanish. We learned more in two weeks than in a year of regular classes. It was intense and that was the only teacher we have come across that was fully trained to be a language teacher. Had we done that for the first six months we would be completely fluent.

• Find a native to teach you Spanish while you teach them English.

Sounds good and I tried it but you must be highly structured, i.e. one hour only English then one hour of talking only Spanish. In reality, it becomes a mix and neither student learns much.

• Take regular classes

This is what most of us end up doing, and something we still do. Unless you are taking many hours of language class each week, this method helps more with maintaining your current level of Spanish. It is also the most expensive. Most teachers want at least $5 an hour and most want double if teaching both of us. You have to search for a good teacher since most are young ladies without any formal training. I know many friends who keep their teacher because they did not want to hurt their feelings by asking for another teacher.

• CDs, DVDs, online courses

I’ve tried a lot of them and some are better than others. Some are very good for just learning the basic rules and verbs. But to really learn another language, you must converse with a native speaker.

I have run into many frustrations trying to learn Spanish. One was discovering that Nica Spanish was different than Castilian Spanish, Cuban Spanish, etc. This discovery invalidated half of my reference books and CDs. We had a group of volunteers from Spain and our Nica friends could not understand them. This really raised my confidence level when two Spanish speaking groups could not understand one another. Nicas use the informal Vos verb form and most Spanish reference books do not even acknowledge that verb form exists. So be sure to buy the Central American version of Spanish CDs and DVDs.

Sometimes I suspect my Nica neighbors are trying to sabotage my efforts at learning. Many of them tend not to use verbs at times. For example, I have a friend, Ivania, who sometimes runs up to me and simply states “enojado?, feliz? or triste?” (mad, happy or sad). I spent many weeks memorizing the 501 most used verbs and the mysterious differences between ser (to be) and estar (to be), so I expect everyone to use verbs.

Our major problem is that when we hear something, we must translate it to its English equivalent, think of the response, translate that back to Spanish, and then try to speak it. And that’s assuming we still remember what the original question was. My wife Amy is much better at comprehending what people are saying while I still just hear mumbo-jumbo many times. My strength is that I understand the rules of English and Spanish grammar better so I can form more correct responses assuming the Spanish speaker can wait two minutes while I formulate the response. So we do make a better team than tackling the language individually.

We have been told it usually takes 5-7 years of immersion before we can begin thinking in Spanish instead of translating everything from English. You cannot translate Spanish to English literally, which is probably true for most languages. For example, we say “I am hungry” while they say “I have hunger.” This may seem minor, but it means you cannot just translate the words and get the same meaning for the sentence. Please remember, I am not a linguist and these are merely my perceptions on learning another language. I now have much more respect for people that speak multiple languages. I shudder to think how many times I heard someone in the United States make derogatory remarks about a Latino speaking halted English. I wish I had that much mastery over a second language.

People will tell you Spanish is easy to learn because so many words are the same or similar to their equivalent in English, but that is what makes it difficult because you tend to fabricate non-existent words by adding an “o’ to the end or just pronouncing it differently. People will also tell you that in Spanish you always pronounce the letters the same unlike English, where vowels are pronounced in many different sounds depending on the word. That may be but in Spanish the “h’ is silent but the “g” has the “h” sound only when preceding “e” or “i” while “j” normally has the “h” sound. And don’t forget every language has a lot of foreign words in it and then the rules do not apply.

You can’t do anything about the nouns, you just have to learn them. It’s the verbs that are the killers. In English there are basically three forms of verbs: the infinitive, the past tense and the past participle. I drink a beer, yesterday I drank a beer and by tomorrow I have drunk another beer. All of the other forms simply add the same old auxiliary verbs. I will drink, I would drink, I have drunk, I had drunk, etc. A few oddities like I drink, we drink, they drink but she drinks, adding the “s’ in third person singular. Spanish speakers must learn all of the irregular verb forms of English and I never realized there were so many since we take them for granted.

But in Spanish there are 15 forms of each verb, plus the past participle and gerund. Within these 15 forms the verb has six styles to indicate who is the speaker or originator of the action. In English we would say I have, you have, we have, she has, they have while in Spanish you say yo tengo, tu tienes (informal you), nosotros tenemos, ella tiene and ellos tienen. And here they use the vos form also, so each verb has up to 90 spellings for a single verb.

In addition, adjectives must match in gender and number and nouns may be masculine or feminine with corresponding articles—suddenly you have quite a lot to learn. One of the other oddities is that saying a Spanish sentence may be different than the spelling. For example, if a word has a final syllable that sounds the same as the first syllable of the next word, you just drop one of similar sounds. This creates a smooth sounding, more efficient sentence, but one that is more difficult to comprehend. We’re not looking for sympathy, but it has proven to be a challenge to learn Spanish and I’m not as patient now as I was when I was younger.

Do not be discouraged. You can learn Nica Spanish, or “Nicañol.” My major problem was I waited until I was a crotchety older man before trying seriously. Some days I’m just not in the mood to speak or hear any tongue other than my native language. I have been known to be unruly in Spanish classes and even correct the teacher just because I feel ornery. I know when I’m ornery because I then start saying things like “you young whippersnapper, I was studying grammar rules before you were a gleam in your father’s eye.” Class usually goes downhill after that.

Some final tips: Classes are much easier in the early morning than in the hot afternoons. Learn the verbs and the subjugations on your own and use class time for practical application and conversation. Have the teacher come to your home, so if you get frustrated you are close enough to the refrigerator to grab a beer or a drink. Learning with your wife is difficult; it requires excellent social skills and is a good way to ruin a marriage. Good teachers give you homework. Poor teachers tell you that you are making excellent progress and speak Spanish well. You should change teachers every few months. Always interview the teacher before starting a series of classes to ensure you are compatible. After all, you are paying for a service.

Good luck, I hope your road to Spanish is smoother than mine.

Darrell Bushnell moved to Nicaragua six years ago with his wife Amy, who has the Centro D’Arte art studio/gallery on Calle Calzada in Granada. Darrell keeps busy writing a Granada community newsletter called Nica Nuggets and manages the www.nicaragua-guide.com website for expats living in Nicaragua or thinking about it. 

The raid, which started at 4:30 a.m. and reportedly lasted all day, converting whole sections of the city into a yellow-tape crime scene, was on businesses as diverse as distributors of household appliances, discos, restaurants, farms and hardware stores, according to Sandinista media outlets, the only government source to offer any information on the police operation.

The raids, which were reportedly done without warrants or any judges’ orders, startled the community of Estelí. “The city of Estelí was full of black uniformed SWAT Team police members,” a Nicaragua Dispatch reader who witnessed the operation reports. “Teams were swooping down on some 17 businesses suspected of dealing drugs.”

In addition to the arrests, 12 trucks and seven motorcycles were confiscated by police.

Roberto Moncada, president of Estelí’s Chamber of Commerce, told local reporters he doesn’t know why he was swept up in the raids.

The Nicaragua Dispatch was unable to get in touch with the president of the Superior Private Business Chamber (COSEP) for comment on Moncada’s arrest or the raid against the businesses in Estelí.

Police have not yet offered any details about Sunday’s operation.