Grupo Minero Xiloá, S.A. (Grumixsa), a company founded in August 2020, is controlled by employees of the Albanisa conglomerate and has direct ties to the business network of the Ortega-Murillo family.
The offices of this corporation are located in the same facilities as the Nicaraguan Mining Company (Eniminas), a state entity that was sanctioned by the United States in 2022.
In fact, LA PRENSA verified that Grumixsa’s offices are located in the Bolonia neighborhood of Managua, in the same place where Eniminas operates. This company was created in 2017. In 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned it, along with its former president, Ruy Delgado López.
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According to Law 953, Eniminas “is tasked with carrying out and developing the exploration and rational exploitation of the country’s mineral resources… and may engage in, among others, the following activities:
7. Commercialize mineral resources derived from its operations.
8. Participate in any commercial activity that benefits its operations.”
When it was sanctioned in 2021, the state-owned company became financially “dead,” as it could no longer conduct business with the United States.
“High-ranking members of the Ortega-Murillo regime have greatly benefited from the increase in Nicaragua’s gold exports in recent years, largely due to the outsized role that Eniminas has played in channeling profits to private-sector partners and paying bribes to members of the regime,” the United States stated at the time.
After Eniminas was sanctioned, this company appears to have taken its place in gold exports — only this time directly tied to the interests of the Ortega-Murillo family.
An internet search found no website or phone number for Grupo Minero Xiloá, S.A. (Grumixsa).
The largest gold processing plant in Nicaragua
On October 1, 2024, the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) granted Grumixsa the most recent concession for the Flor de Azalea lot, covering 1,352.29 hectares, for both metallic and non-metallic mining in the municipality of Villanueva, Chinandega, in western Nicaragua.
“This company operates a gold processing plant in Villanueva. That’s where they buy from artisanal miners. It’s the largest plant in the country, covering approximately 30 manzanas (about 52 acres), including the tailings dam,” said a source under condition of anonymity.
Grumixsa received its first state concession in November 2020—just three months after being created—for 28.53 hectares in Mateare, a municipality of Managua, under the name Xiloá lot. It is classified as “non-metallic,” and the concession will remain valid until November 11, 2045.
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Read: China now controls an area equivalent to the San Juan River in mining concessions
The legal representative is an employee of Albanisa
Public Registry documents accessed by LA PRENSA reveal that its legal representative for the past two years has been electrical engineer Marlon José Salinas López, a worker linked to the business consortium created locally under the shadow of Venezuela’s multimillion-dollar cooperation program.
Salinas López is an employee of Albageneración, a subsidiary of the Alba de Nicaragua (Albanisa) conglomerate — the company through which the Ortega-Murillo family privatized the cooperation funds, which were once managed by FSLN treasurer Francisco López Centeno.
“As militants and workers, our commitment is to embrace our principles and values in order to manage efficiency and effectiveness, and to keep our production rate as high as possible,” Salinas López told pro-government media in 2017, while serving as manager of Albageneración.
LA PRENSA tried to contact Salinas López, but as of the publication deadline, he had not responded to messages sent to the contact information listed on his LinkedIn profile.
The existence of Grumixsa and its ties to those in power come to light as the dictatorship has recently granted mining concessions to Chinese companies—just as unknown as the Nicaraguan one—while exerting fiscal pressure on established firms, forcing a shift in the market.
Read also: Dictatorship demands millions in taxes from Calibre Mining and Hemco
Partner company linked to the Ortega-Murillo family
The documents obtained by LA PRENSA also reveal other links to the Executive Branch. Salinas López received a general power of attorney through Deed No. 226, dated December 11, 2023, prepared by notary Sobeida Vicente Toruño Real. This deed, shown to LA PRENSA by a former employee, holds the keys to this entire scheme.
Toruño Real listed her professional address with the Supreme Court of Justice as the Hugo Chávez Foundation building, located one block north and half a block toward the lake from the Albanisa gate in the Lomas de Monserrat neighborhood. Her attorney registration code is 19954.
LA PRENSA contacted Toruño Real by phone, but she declined to provide information on the matter. “Oh, I don’t know anything about that,” she said before hanging up.
According to the deed, the main shareholders of Grupo Minero Xiloá are Urbanizadora Industrial Sociedad Anónima, whose creation details are not provided, and which is not referred to by its initials, URBISA. This company is represented by economist Carlos Armando Flores Zamora, who owns 70 shares. Chemical engineer Elixon Canales Lara owns 30 shares and serves as the company’s president.
An investigation by Confidencial, published in February 2022, revealed that URBISA is one of the 22 corporations belonging to the business network of the Ortega-Murillo family. It is linked to notary Patricia Josefina Villarreal Martínez, a lawyer from the FSLN Secretariat, who held the position of secretary of the company’s board of directors in September 2019.
Indeed, the Supreme Court’s attorney directory lists Villarreal Martínez’s professional address in Reparto El Carmen, on the southeast side of the park of the same name — that is, near the Ortega-Murillo residence.
“Patricia is one of Rosario Murillo’s trusted notaries,” explained a source when asked about her professional background.
Other political links of Grumixsa appear in a certification regarding the company’s so-called beneficial owners, issued on August 9, 2023. Among them are the other partners: Elixon Canales Lara, Carlos Armando Flores Zamora (representing URBISA), Alberto Genaro Espinoza Gaitán, and Marco Aurelio Rivas Kauffman.
Beneficiary was a former board member of Petronic and Eniminas
Rivas Kauffman is another well-known figure within the Ortega circle. According to Presidential Decrees 149-2020 and 152-2020, he replaced Paul Oquist in October 2020 as a board member of both the Nicaraguan Petroleum Company (Petronic) and the Nicaraguan Mining Company (Eniminas), following the sanctions imposed on Oquist.
Oquist, an American from California who had worked with Ortega since the 1980s, passed away in April 2021.
Read also: High gold and coffee prices caused exports to grow by nearly 30%
The Ortega regime is turning gold into the biggest source of income — not only for the country, but for its own coffers
Just as Ortega used Venezuelan cooperation funds between 2009 and 2015—estimated at an average of $500 million a year—to build his fortune and create Albanisa and its subsidiaries (Albalinisa, Albageneración, Albaforestal, DNP Petronic, among others), at least since 2019 he has been turning the gold sector into his main source of income.
Gold has become the country’s leading export product, especially now that the international price of a troy ounce has reached historic highs above $4,000.
“Besides the price, another advantage of gold is that if today you can’t sell it to the United States, tomorrow you can sell it to Turkey, the Emirates, or anywhere else — and at this price, a single pound of gold you extract is worth more than $60,000,” said a source familiar with the sector, who requested anonymity for obvious reasons.
The Central Bank of Nicaragua reported that the country exported $1.235 billion in gold between January and August 2025. In 2024, exports in the same category totaled $1.3539 billion.
Tomorrow: How much gold can the Grumixsa plant process?
