A new report focuses on Wagner’s operations in Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic.
Vladimir Nikolayev/AFP via Getty Images
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A new report focuses on Wagner’s operations in Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic.
Vladimir Nikolayev/AFP via Getty Images
A new report details how the Wagner mercenary group uses gold mining in Africa to funnel money to the Kremlin.
According The Blood Gold ReportWagner has laundered an estimated $2.5 billion to Russia since its all-out invasion of Ukraine last year in an effort to support its war effort.
This is despite global sanctions that have cut off the Russian economy from much of the world.
The report was produced by the Consumer Choice Center, as well as Democracy 21 — a nonprofit organization that monitors corruption and advocates for government transparency.
Jessica Berlin, political analyst and co-author of the report participated All things considered hosts Scott Detrow to discuss their findings and how far the plan has progressed.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Highlights of the interview
Scott Detrow: Thus, the report focuses on three countries: Sudan, Mali and the Central African Republic. Wagner has a presence in many countries. Why were those three so important to what you’re trying to see here?
Jessica Berlin: Well, these countries are where Russia’s gold blood trade has really taken off. They are the primary targets for Russia’s activities in the gold industry. And they also show very clearly the model of how Wagner operates on the continent and is able to exert increasing economic and political influence there.
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Detroit: When you use the phrase blood gold, tell us what you mean by it.
Berlin: The term blood gold was coined to describe the gold that is mined and laundered into international markets to fund the Russian state and, in turn, allow the Russian state to wage its war of aggression in Ukraine, as well as to commit atrocities against people in Syria and across the African continent.
And we created this phrase blood gold to help people understand the connection between Wagner’s business side and the truly deadly foreign policy and international crimes committed by the Russian state.
These actors are one in the same. There is no separation between “private military contractor” Wagner and the Kremlin’s wars against the Ukrainian and Syrian people, for example.
We have to understand that this is part of a coherent global strategy and that if you activate one, you activate the other.
Detroit: Tell us about this model. And I know it probably varies a little bit from country to country, but there’s a typical playbook that we see here. Let us know how it works.
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Berlin: Well, first, it’s important to understand that Wagner’s involvement in Africa predates the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They have already been doing it for years, for example, in the Central African Republic [CAR].
Wagner has already been working and operating with the regime there since 2017. They were basically granted exclusive mining rights to the country’s largest gold mine in exchange for supporting the regime there.
It is basically what can be considered a private security company, providing the regime with both physical and political protection. They are targeting opposition groups, unleashing many disinformation and hybrid warfare tactics against opponents and critics of the regime in CAR that you would also see globally in Russian disinformation and hybrid warfare tactics against any of their enemies. real.
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Detroit: How does the gold from these countries get out of the market and back to the Russian government?
Berlin: This is the million dollar question. Or in this case, the $2.5 billion question. So Russia, as we know, has a wide, wide range of money laundering capabilities that go far beyond gold.
In this case, we see a large amount of gold being sold, smuggled and effectively refined and laundered through the Middle East, particularly the UAE, into the Dubai gold market. Also, through China and Hong Kong, there are very, very extensive and complex front companies, which are used to move the money.
And the gold is literally transported by truck and plane to these countries, where it can then be melted down and mixed with legally procured gold. And that makes gold relatively easy to hide. And, of course, in the Mali example, they don’t have to because they are paid in cash, essentially through the tax income generated by the legitimate Western mining companies paying government taxes on their business operations there.
Detroit: And of course, there are two years of international sanctions on Russia. Right now, our current sanctions are reportedly trying to address that income stream. What is the state of affairs at the moment? What do you see; What works, what doesn’t?
Berlin: The good news is that sanctions against the Wagner Group and individuals in Wagner’s orbit are taking effect and it is becoming increasingly difficult for Wagner to get his money out of Africa.
The bad news is that it’s apparently not enough – $2.5 billion in just the last year and a half is, of course, a huge amount. And to reduce Wagner’s ability to profit from targets on the continent, we must greatly increase sanctions and the way we target actors involved in the blood gold trade.
This means not just going after Wagner from the supply side, but going after the regimes that contract them from the demand side. So if governments in Africa, and elsewhere in the world for that matter, if they know that dealing with Wagner will cost them personally, both financially and in terms of their and their families’ ability to travel, they might think twice times for signing this contract.
And that’s a way to make it quite simply unsustainable, less attractive and less profitable for those states to engage in trade with Wagner in the first place.