The key facts

  • After Yevgeny Prigozhin's death, Russia planned to transfer the African mercenaries to the Defense Ministry's 'Africa Corps', but in the CAR Pavel Prigozhin retained control
  • According to the WSJ, CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera asked the Kremlin not to send Defense Ministry troops and integrated the Wagner fighters into the police, army and intelligence
  • The Prigozhin family, according to an anti-transnational-crime organization, earns more than $400 million a year

Control despite Moscow's plans

After the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian authorities took the Wagner private military company under their control and created the 'Africa Corps' within the Defense Ministry, to which the company's African mercenaries were supposed to be transferred. However, as The Wall Street Journal writes, citing its own investigation, the son of the PMC founder, Pavel Prigozhin, has retained control over the Wagner fighters in the Central African Republic and is expanding his father's business. Kun.uz carries a summary of the investigation.

The role of the CAR president

According to the outlet, CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera helped Pavel Prigozhin in this: he asked the Kremlin not to replace the mercenaries with Russian Defense Ministry troops and integrated Prigozhin's fighters into the country's police, army and intelligence units. Experts interviewed by the journalists believe that the younger Prigozhin struck a kind of agreement with the Kremlin in order to strengthen his position in the CAR.

Business and income

About 500 Wagner fighters are stationed in Bangui, the capital of the CAR: they guard the president, fight insurgents and, according to the WSJ, make money from gold mining, drug trafficking and arms sales. Pavel Prigozhin controls the country's largest gold mine with an annual income of about $250 million; the local government declares the extracted metal state property and helps export it — over the past three months, the journalists note, the gold was shipped out through Belarus. In addition, he controls a significant share of the local tramadol market, sells weapons to rebel groups in Sudan and Libya, and the Wagner fighters have set up vodka and beer production in the country. The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime estimates the Prigozhin family's total annual income at more than $400 million.

Propaganda and headquarters in Bangui

The outlet notes that in the CAR the group owns radio stations through which it runs anti-Western propaganda, praises President Touadera and endorses the Russian government. Pavel Prigozhin himself lives in St. Petersburg but regularly travels to Bangui. During one of these trips he stayed at the Ledger Plaza hotel, which has effectively become the Wagner group's headquarters in the country: the grounds are guarded by armed fighters, and high-ranking officials are thoroughly searched before meetings with Prigozhin.