Orlando Murillo
Nicaraguan economist and former Central Bank official under Somoza who laundered cocaine proceeds for Danilo Blandón through banks in Panama and Miami.
Orlando Murillo was an economist who served on the board of Nicaragua's Central Bank before the Sandinista revolution.1 He was the uncle of Chepita Blandón and a member of the extended Blandón-Murillo family network.
Family Connections
Murillo's father had been president of Nicaragua's National Assembly. Chepita Blandón's father had been Managua's mayor. The Murillos were stalwarts of Somoza's Liberal party and had provided leaders for the National Assembly for generations. Like the Blandóns, the Murillos owned large tracts of the capital, including the national telecommunications company headquarters, along with cattle ranches and plantations.
Relationship to Danilo Blandón
Murillo stated that he paid for the airline tickets when Danilo Blandón and his family fled Nicaragua in June 1979, and also gave the couple $5,000 before they left - contradicting Blandón's claim that he arrived in the U.S. with only $100 after selling a television.
Murillo described the slum owned by Blandón's father, Julio Blandón: "It was called Via Misery. People there lived like the niggers in Los Angeles."1 But it made [Danilo's] father a very rich man."
House Purchase for Blandón
When Blandón moved his family from Northridge to a sprawling Spanish-style home in Rialto, San Bernardino County, during the peak of his trafficking empire, he withdrew $175,000 in cash from his bank account in Panama and gave it to Murillo, who purchased the house under his own name to keep Blandón's name off the property rolls. From the terraced hillside behind the new house, Blandón could gaze out at the rolling hills and towering pines of a country-club golf course.2
Money Laundering Operations
The Torres brothers told detective Jerry Guzzetta during 1986 debriefings that once Blandón's cash arrived in Florida, Murillo would launder it. They described Murillo as "a bank chairman under Somoza prior to his being thrown out of power." Roberto Orlando Murillo had been appointed by President Somoza in 1978 to the Central Bank of Nicaragua, similar in function to the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. The debonair investment banker was also the official representative of two Swiss banks located in Panama and Managua, and had managed a number of the Somoza family's businesses before the revolution.3
Sources
- Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 2: "We were the first" ↩
- Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 10: "Teach a man a craft and he's liable to practice it" ↩
- Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion. Seven Stories Press, 1998. Chapter 14: "It's bigger than I can handle" ↩
Hidden connections 2
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Local network
Orlando Murillo's direct connections. Click any node to navigate, drag to pan, scroll (or pinch) to zoom. + 2‑hop expands the neighborhood one level further.