US imposes sanctions against companies that contributed to activities of Wagner Group in Africa

On Tuesday, the US Department of Treasury announced the introduction of sanctions against four individuals and one legal entity associated with the Wagner Group private military company and its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Source: European Pravda, citing the  statement in the press release of the US Department of Treasury.

Companies in the Central African Republic, the United Arab Emirates and Russia that participated in illegal gold transactions to finance Wagnerites to provide them with weapons, in particular in Ukraine and Africa, were restricted.

It concerns mining company Midas Resources SARLU, based in the Central African Republic and associated with Prigozhin. It is claimed that it funds the activities of the Wagnerites both in the country and abroad at the expense of profits from the sale of extracted gold.

Another South African company, Diamville, was involved in a gold sale scheme last year, which involved converting it into US dollars, which were planned to be withdrawn after the introduction of US sanctions against several Russian financial institutions.

Dubai-based distributor Industrial Resources General Trading provided financial support to Prigozhin through trading with Diamville and helped with the transfer of cash to Russia. Russia's DM Company Ltd. also participated in the scheme.

The sanctions were also imposed on Russian citizen Andrey Ivanov, the head of the Wagner Group of companies, who in the spring of 2023 worked closely with Prigozhin's Company Africa Politology and high-ranking officials of the government of Mali, dealing with arms sales and mining companies.

The Wagner Group was created in 2014 and was active in a number of countries where Russia has important interests – in particular, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic and Ukraine. Among other things, they committed war crimes and crimes against humanity there.

After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Wagnerites took part in reprisals against civilians. The Wagner Group is currently recruiting prisoners from Russia.

Back in 2017, the United States added the Wagner Group to the trade "black list", and late in 2022, it imposed new restrictions on technology exports for the Wagner Group in order to further limit its capabilities due to its participation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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