She gained national attention for her participation in the botched kidnapping and murder of General Reynaldo Pérez Vega (nicknamed "El Perro," or "the dog"). Pérez Vega was deputy commander of Anastasio Somoza’s National Guard. On March 8, 1978, Astorga invited the general to her apartment in Managua, hinting to him that the sexual favors he had long sought would be granted. When he arrived, however, three members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) — Hilario Sánchez, Raúl Venerio and Walter Ferreti — burst out of her bedroom closet and seized the general. The plan was to ransom him for jailed Sandinista revolutionaries, but Pérez Vega put up a struggle and was murdered. Later, with his throat slit, he was found wrapped in a Sandinista flag. Astorga said of his murder, "It was not murder. He was too much of a monster."