When international sanctions block a source of funding for authoritarian regimes, they often find another. In Nicaragua, the Ortega-Murillo regime has turned gold into its lifeline — a financial artery that sustains its political control, fuels repression, encourages corruption, distorts trade, and paves the way for China’s growing influence in Central America.
For more than a decade, the Nicaraguan dictatorship was sustained by money extracted through the Venezuelan oil purchase scheme. Through Albanisa, a joint venture between PDVSA and the Nicaraguan state company Petronic, the regime diverted billions of dollars from public funds into parallel accounts outside the national budget. That scheme collapsed between 2019 and 2020, when Washington sanctioned Albanisa, Caruna, and Bancorp, along with the regime’s financial operators.
By then, however, the Ortega-Murillo family had already amassed more than one billion dollars, hidden in loans to municipalities, negotiable Nicaraguan Treasury bonds, and cash reserves.
When the oil scheme dried up, the regime turned its eyes to gold — a highly profitable resource, difficult to trace, and less dependent on formal financial mechanisms. Since 2020, the Nicaraguan government has restructured the mining sector into a complex network of shell companies, frontmen, and partnerships with Chinese nationals, designed to generate foreign currency, launder sanctioned assets, and reinforce political control.
At the center of this scheme is Laureano Ortega Murillo, son of the dictators and the regime’s chief operator, assisted by Salvador Mansell Castillo and Santiago Hernán Bermúdez Tapia, heads of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, along with a long list of frontmen who act as shareholders, directors, legal representatives, signatories, figureheads, and operators within the web of beneficiary entities. Together, they have transformed gold mining into a system of rent-seeking, bribery, and loyalty-buying, which also serves as a vehicle for closer ties with China.
After the United States sanctioned the state-owned company Eniminas in 2022, the regime shifted tactics. New companies such as Comintsa, Capital Mining, and Grupo Minero Xiloá emerged — all linked to the same officials within the regime’s inner circle. When Washington sanctioned Comintsa and Capital Mining in 2024 for generating revenue for the regime, they vanished from public records, only to reappear under new names with the same hidden owners.
The next step was to seal the alliance with the Chinese. In 2025, the government modified export regulations to grant a handful of Chinese companies allied with the regime exclusive rights to purchase and export raw gold to the United States. Firms such as Zhong Fu Development Nicaragua, XinXin Linze Minería Group, Thomas Metal, and Brother Metal—none of which had any prior mining experience—came to control the country’s main export sector. Since then, they have set local prices and earned extraordinary profits, with arbitrage margins exceeding 25 percent.
In addition to being a business, this scheme is also a geopolitical alliance. While Nicaragua exports gold to the United States, it sends antimony to China — a strategic mineral for the military industry, used in ammunition, fire retardants, night-vision devices, and defense technology. According to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity, in 2022 China was the main destination for Nicaraguan antimony, with exports totaling $27 million. Much of that trade was channeled through Santa Rita Mining, a company formed in 2018 by the Canadian concession holders operating in Nicaragua — Calibre, Rosita, and Century Mining, the latter controlled by the Asian state-owned giant China Minmetals Corp. Environmental and concession permits were facilitated directly by Laureano Ortega.
In parallel, Grupo Minero Xiloá consolidated itself as a money-laundering hub. Composed of former officials from Eniminas, Albanisa, and Caruna, the group buys artisanal gold in cash, processes it, and exports it through the network of allied Chinese companies, using the U.S. financial system to legitimize illicit funds. These resources are then used to finance the regime’s repressive operations and maintain the political machinery that ensures its hold on power.
Other actors complete the network. Suministro y Montaje Electromecánico, S.A., represented by Omar Javier Cortez Moncada, serves as a channel for foreign company bribes, receiving up to 5 percent of their monthly income through fictitious contracts. Inteligencia de Ingeniería Civil y Eléctrica, S.A., registered under Denisse del Carmen Díaz Rodríguez, a collaborator of Mansell, is used to make illicit payments to officials and businesspeople in the energy sector.
The ecosystem goes beyond economics. In 2024, the regime created the Chino-Nicaraguan Chamber of Industry and Commerce (CCNC), a replica of the former AmCham, which was shut down when the government dismantled thousands of civil organizations. The CCNC is headed by Chinese businessman Hangbi Xie, with Aníbal Vladimir Matus Buitrago and Feiwu Bian as vice presidents — the same individuals who represent Santa Rita Mining and Zhong Fu Development. The chamber not only formalizes the Managua-Beijing alliance, but also provides diplomatic cover to those managing the joint mining operations, seeking to shield them partially from future sanctions.
The result is a system that serves several purposes simultaneously: it secures foreign currency, rewards loyalty, legitimizes sanctioned funds, and strengthens dependence on China. For the United States, the implications are significant. Every ounce of Nicaraguan gold exported to the U.S. helps finance a regime accused of crimes against humanity. At the same time, China gains privileged access to strategic resources and consolidates its presence in the Central American isthmus, displacing Western influence.
What makes this system resilient is its capacity to adapt. Every sanction triggers a mutation. When Albanisa fell, Eniminas emerged. When Eniminas was sanctioned, Capital Mining appeared. Now, Santa Rita and its Chinese counterparts are in operation. The regime survives by exploiting the gray areas between sanctions, raw material trade, and weaknesses in international gold traceability systems.
Breaking this cycle would require more than individual sanctions. Washington and its allies would have to target the entire gold value chain, from concession and export to refining and final sale. This means cooperation with U.S. importers, stricter controls for refineries, and mandatory traceability systems.
But it also requires understanding the geopolitical dimension. China’s expansion into Nicaragua’s mining sector is no coincidence — it is part of a broader strategy to consolidate its influence in Latin America. For the Ortega-Murillo regime, Beijing is not only a business partner but also a political shield.
Gold, once an ancestral symbol of wealth and purity, is now stained with blood — transformed into the currency of repression. Every ounce that leaves the country sustains a dictatorship that disappears, imprisons, or expels its opponents, dismantles civil society, confiscates religious groups, exiles priests, and sells its sovereignty to the highest bidder.
As long as the glitter of gold keeps blinding international markets, the Ortega-Murillo regime will keep breathing. Behind that shine, there is no prosperity — only a plundered country, a subjugated society, and a future mortgaged in exchange for power.
