The International Mining Company, Sociedad Anónima (Comintsa), sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2024, transferred on Monday, January 26, the mining concession for the “La Reyna II” lot to the Chinese company Thomas Metal S.A. The concession spans 4,131 hectares, part of which lies in San Ramón and part in Matagalpa, in Nicaragua’s north.
The transfer was formalized through Resolution No. 117-SBT-M-111-2025 issued by the Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) and published in the official gazette, La Gaceta.
According to the document, Comintsa is represented by Nicaraguan engineer Nelson Francisco Sobalvarro and requested authorization on October 10, 2025, although the resolution became public only this Monday—just over three months later.
LA PRENSA contacted Sobalvarro and left text messages seeking his version of events, but the company’s legal representative did not respond. The concession was originally granted to Comintsa on June 8, 2022, by the MEM through Ministerial Agreement No. 025-DGM-019-2022.
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MEM Vice Minister Santiago Bermúdez approved the request from the sanctioned mining company and awarded the lot to Thomas Metal S.A. “The company Thomas Metal, Sociedad Anónima, is hereby declared the new holder of the concession rights over the lot known as ‘La Reyna II,’ with an area of 4,131.79 hectares, located in the municipalities of San Ramón and Matagalpa, in the department of Matagalpa,” the official document states.
Of the total area, 350.30 hectares are located in the municipality of Matagalpa and 3,781.49 hectares in San Ramón. As of today, Thomas Metal S.A. must begin exploration activities within a period not exceeding four years, extendable by one additional year.
Thomas Metal S.A. Now Holds 184,884 Hectares
Thomas Metal Sociedad Anónima, represented by Chinese businessman Xiangming Gu, has been one of the Chinese companies “favored” by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. In October 2025, the MEM granted it six mining concessions totaling 62,189.19 hectares.
These concessions were added to the seven the company already held, bringing its total to at least 184,884.23 hectares across 13 lots. Of this total, at least three concessions—covering 108,464.30 hectares—are located near and within the Indio Maíz Biological Reserve.
The only information available online about Thomas Metal S.A. indicates that it has offices in Managua and Chinandega, according to Google Maps.
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U.S. Sanctions Against Comintsa
On May 15, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned three Nicaragua-based entities, including Comintsa and Capital Mining. The Treasury Department justified the sanctions by stating that Comintsa and Capital Mining are part of the gold-mining companies that “generate revenue for the Ortega-Murillo regime.”
It emphasized that gold is Nicaragua’s top export commodity and said the measure was imposed with the “aim of degrading the Ortega-Murillo regime’s ability to manipulate the sector and benefit from the corrupt operations of Comintsa and Capital Mining.”
Brian E. Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, referred at the time to the sanctions imposed on a Russian police training center installed in Managua and on the mining companies. “The Ortega and Murillo regime has continued its antidemocratic campaign of repression against its citizens, using the training received from Russia at the CCR and the revenues generated by exploiting the gold sector,” Nelson said.
The Treasury Department detailed that Comintsa is a Nicaraguan company that was then owned by Salvador Mansell Castillo, Minister of Energy and Mines. The regime official was sanctioned by OFAC in November 2021 after being identified as one of nine officials responsible for repressing Nicaraguans’ exercise of their human rights and fundamental freedoms. Comintsa still holds the El Ocote lot, located in Waslala, in Nicaragua’s North Caribbean region, covering 1,368.56 hectares.
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Direct control
The gold sector is under the direct control of the Ortega family through Laureano Ortega Murillo, the regime’s investment adviser. In the same resolution, the Treasury Department also sanctioned Capital Mining Investment Nicaragua, which it said is “controlled by Laureano Ortega Murillo.”
In recent reports, LA PRENSA has documented how, in less than four years, another 6,000-hectare concession passed from the same sanctioned company, Comintsa, to other Chinese firms with no prior track record. This is the Tutuwaka lot, located in El Rama, in Nicaragua’s Southern Caribbean region. In 2022, it was held by Comintsa; in 2024 it was transferred to the Chinese company Zhong Fu Development, and this year to Tutuwaka Mining Company, S.A.
According to Amaru Ruiz, director of Fundación del Río, this reflects a process of “concession laundering” involving companies sanctioned by the United States, “to try to give them a semblance of legality and bypass the actors who were or are in charge of those lots.”
