Nicaragua’s government said it will return mining company BHMB Mining to its original owners after the operation was confiscated in September 2025. File Photo by Christobal Herrera-Ulashkevich
May 28 (UPI) — Nicaragua’s government said it will return mining company BHMB Mining to its original owners after the operation was confiscated in September 2025 and later transferred to Chinese firms.
The announcement came from Nicaragua’s Attorney General’s Office and follows what local media and analysts described as efforts by President Daniel Ortega and Vice President Rosario Murillo’s government to avoid additional sanctions from the Trump administration.
According to the government, officials reached an agreement with BHMB Inc., a U.S.-British company incorporated in Florida, allowing operations to resume at the BHMB Palacaguina processing plant in northern Nicaragua.
“As a result of a process of dialogue and coordination carried out in an atmosphere of cooperation and mutual respect, an understanding has been reached aimed at the orderly and secure normalization and operational reactivation of the BHMB Palacaguina plant,” the government said in a statement.
The government added that the specific terms and conditions of the agreement remain confidential.
Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa previously reported that authorities seized the facilities in September 2025. The company operated a gold processing plant in northern Nicaragua valued at more than $80 million under a 10-year operating permit.
The owners said that after the expropriation, Nicaraguan authorities transferred the plant to Chinese companies Zhong Fu Development and Santa Rita Mining.
Environmental and Indigenous rights advocate Amaru Ruiz wrote on X that “the Ortega-Murillo regime announces an agreement with BHMB Mining Nicaragua to free itself from the complaint filed before ICSID over the expropriation suffered by the company.”
Ruiz later told Nicaraguan outlet 100% Noticias that the decision represented an unusual reversal by the government. He said the administration “feared losing the case before ICSID” because of growing international pressure and the possibility of economic sanctions.
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, or ICSID, is a World Bank institution that resolves legal disputes between sovereign states and foreign investors.
On April 16, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions targeting individuals and entities tied to Nicaragua’s gold sector.
According to the Treasury Department, the sanctions responded to what it described as the Ortega-Murillo government’s use of the gold industry as a major source of financing for repression and corrupt enrichment of the ruling family.
Nicaraguan journalist Miguel Mendoza said the government’s decision to return the plant to BHMB appeared aimed at avoiding political and economic pressure from the U.S. Congress.
U.S. lawmakers are scheduled to hold a hearing June 4 titled “Confronting the Ortega-Murillo Totalitarian Regime,” focused on democratic backsliding in Nicaragua and rising tensions with Washington.
Mendoza added that BHMB shareholder Baruch Rapoport maintains relationships with figures in the Trump administration, including diplomat Richard Grenell, who served as Trump’s special envoy for Venezuela.
According to Mendoza, those ties may have contributed to recent U.S. sanctions against seven Nicaraguan mining companies, targeting one of the government’s most profitable sectors.