Richard Grenell, who has served as a special envoy for Donald Trump to Caracas, is focusing on the confiscation of a U.S. company in Nicaragua whose assets were transferred to a Chinese firm.
Grenell, who has also overseen the Trump-Kennedy Center, said in a post on his X account that if the regime of Daniel Ortega does not resolve the confiscation of the U.S. company BHMB Mining Nicaragua, sanctions should be imposed on Nicaragua’s entire mining industry.
In September 2025, La Prensa reported that the Ortega dictatorship confiscated BHMB Mining Nicaragua’s gold processing plant and subsequently transferred all its operations to the Chinese company Zhong Fu Development. These assets were valued at more than $80 million. Additionally, La Prensa reported on Saturday, March 14, that a 2,500-hectare concession in San Juan de Río Coco was also revoked from the U.S. company and reassigned to Palacagüina Mining, another firm linked to alleged Chinese investors.
This is the second time Grenell has reacted to the confiscation of this company and raised the possibility of sanctions on an industry that contributes nearly $2 billion to Nicaragua’s economy—an industry that is rapidly coming under the control of a network of little-known Chinese companies and the Ortega-Murillo family, through Laureano Ortega.
“Seizing an American businessman’s mine and handing it over to the Chinese is unacceptable. This should be fixed – or face sanctions for the entire gold industry of Nicaragua,” Grenell wrote on X.
Two weeks earlier, Grenell had already described the confiscation of BHMB Mining—owned by BHMB Inc., a U.S.- and British-capital company incorporated in Florida—as outrageous.
You may be interested: Ortega–Murillo Government Hands 8.5% of Nicaragua’s Territory to Chinese Mining Companies
Criticism of the confiscation appears to have prompted an unusual statement on Saturday, February 21, from Nicaragua’s Attorney General’s Office, which claimed that concessions in the sector are granted following “due process and transparency.” However, the BHMB Mining case undermines that assertion.
The takeover was formally carried out on September 18, 2025, but the ordeal for the company’s owners began in August, when officials from the Ministry of Energy and Mines ordered the plant’s manager to halt operations. Baruch Rapoport told La Prensa weeks ago that two companies—Zhong Fu and Santa Rita Mining—facilitated the confiscation. Both have benefited from state-awarded concessions.
“In our case, a U.S.-origin company with registered investment and legal operations was shut down, its assets confiscated, and de facto control of its facilities transferred to entities linked to Chinese companies that also received significant concessions,” Rapoport said.
Investigations by La Prensa revealed that the Ortega-Murillo family has direct interests in the mining sector. They are reportedly involved in an extortion scheme that allows them to control the business. Key entities in this structure include Capital Mining Investment Nicaragua, S.A., the processing plant of Grupo Minero Xiloá (Grumixsa), and Suministro y Montaje Electromecánico.
