By Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday imposed sanctions on a number of individuals and companies that operate in Nicaragua's gold sector, including two sons of the country's co-presidents.
Another of the individuals sanctioned is Santiago Hernan Bermudez Tapia, Nicaragua's vice minister of energy and mines, the Treasury Department said in a statement. A number of companies were also sanctioned that the U.S. said had been complicit in helping the Nicaraguan
government generate money from gold and maintain political control.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Nicaraguan government, led by Rosario Murillo and her husband Daniel Ortega, had sought to fill its own coffers by "confiscating American investments" in the country.
"The United States will not allow the illicit confiscation of American-owned assets and will continue to target revenue streams that empower the corrupt Murillo-Ortega regime," he said.
Washington, under both the current and former Republican Trump administrations and the prior Democratic Biden administration, has been using economic and diplomatic means to pressure Managua to reform, dating back to a violent crackdown that began in April 2018 following mass demonstrations.
The United Nations last year accused dozens of officials from Ortega's government of serious human rights violations and crimes, in what it described as a "tightly coordinated system of repression" following the protests.
Treasury said the sanctions imposed on Thursday stemmed from the 2025 occupation and forcible seizure of the gold processing site of BHMB Mining Nicaragua S.A., a Nicaraguan company founded in 2019 with foreign investment from a U.S. company.
It said high-ranking members of the Murillo-Ortega government had benefited from Nicaragua's increase in gold exports in recent years as well as actions by state-owned Empresa Nicaraguense de Minas to funnel profits to "private sector partners and kickbacks to regime insiders."
Treasury said its Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on two of the ruling couple's sons: Maurice Facundo Ortega Murillo, who serves as the Nicaraguan presidential delegate for sports, and Daniel Edmundo Ortega Murillo, who heads the country's Communication and Citizenship Council.
Among others sanctioned on Thursday were: the president of Zhong Fu, one of the companies involved in the seizure of BHMB assets; Santa Rita Mining Co., which was granted land concessions for mineral extraction; and Nicaragua-based Exportadora de Metales Sociedad Anonima, which sells gold to the U.S., with the profits possibly used to fund government-linked paramilitary groups, Treasury said.
Grupo Minero Xiloa S.A., was also sanctioned, Treasury said, accusing it of using the U.S. financial system to legitimize illicit funds and using the proceeds to finance the government's political machinery.
No comment was immediately available from the companies or individuals listed.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Daphne Psaledakis and Rosalba O'Brien)
