Managua: Nicaraguan police said on Saturday they are investigating several dioceses of the Catholic Church for money laundering, a day after local media reported that the bank accounts of parishes in the Central American country had been frozen.

The police, loyal to the government of President Daniel Ortega which has clashed fiercely with Nicaragua’s bishops, said that since May 19 they found “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in Church facilities across the country.

Investigations “confirmed the unlawful removal of resources from bank accounts that had been ordered by law to be frozen,” the police said in a statement.

Ortega’s government has intensified attacks against the Catholic Church in the wake of 2018 anti-government protests in which some 360 people died after what human rights groups call police repression.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2023