US points sanctions on firms over Wagner Group hyperlinks | EUROtoday

Issued on: 08/03/2024 – 22:48Modified: 08/03/2024 – 22:50

1 min

“The United States remains focused on disrupting the networks that enable Russia’s illicit and destabilizing activities in Africa,” stated US Treasury Under Secretary for terrorism and monetary intelligence, Brian Nelson.

In an announcement, the Treasury stated these focused “sought monetary gain from illicit natural resource extraction.”

They additionally allegedly supported the Wagner Group and others affiliated with its former proprietor Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Prigozhin died in August 2023, after the airplane he was in crashed on a flight from Moscow to Saint Petersburg.

He died alongside his prime aides within the incident, two months after they tried to topple Russia’s army management, angering President Vladimir Putin.

Among the entities focused on Friday had been Bois Rouge, also called Wood International Group, a timber firm primarily based within the Central African Republic.

It is alleged to be a Prigozhin-associated enterprise, receiving a concession in change for companies the Wagner Group supplied within the republic.

The different is Broker Expert, a agency primarily based in Russia stated to have “a lengthy track record of supporting Prigozhin’s exploits throughout Africa.”

Russia’s highly effective and ruthless Wagner Group has been deployed to Mali, the Central African Republic and allegedly Burkina Faso.

Washington, in flip, has imposed sanctions on many entities and people over their help for the group and different Russian personal army firms, based on the US Treasury Department.

(AFP)