US Announces Sanctions Targeting Wagner Group Gold Operations

The Wagner Group’s failed mutiny is having wide-ranging effects mere days after the military effort was squashed. U.S. authorities have begun imposing sanctions in an effort to disrupt the gold operations in Africa that fund the military organization.

These sanctions were previously planned, but U.S. officials had put them on hold temporarily to avoid making the country look like it had joined a side in the struggle between Vladimir Putin of Russia and Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. However, in the wake of Wagner’s unsuccessful advance on Moscow, the Department of Treasury has targeted organizations that fund the group for sanctions.

This includes Midas Resources, which manages mines in the Central African Republic, and Diamville, a Russian-owned and Central African Republican-based diamond trading company. Both companies are said to be affiliated with Wagner Group and under the control of Progozhin. The sanctions will also target Industrial Resources General Trading, a company based in Dubai that has been tied to Prigoozhin and his financial dealings in Diamville.

Brian Nelson, under secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said that the military group funds its “brutal operations” partly through the exploitation of natural resources in countries such as the Central African Republic and Mali. The sanctions claim that entities in Russia, the Central African Republic and the United Arab Emirates have taken part in illegal gold trade to allow the Wagner Group to sustain its operations and expand its forces in Ukraine and certain regions in Africa.

Nelson said that the United States would continue targeting the group’s revenue streams and disrupting key players in its financial network to “degrade Wagner’s expansion” in Ukraine, Africa and elsewhere.

Mercenaries from the group have been accused of carrying out widespread abuse in Africa, with State Department spokesman Matthew Miller being an outspoken critic of the group. Speaking to reporters, Miller said that Wagner hurts local communities and leaves death and destruction in its wake, including a massacre of at least 500 people in Moura, Central Mali, by Wagner forces in March 2022.

Given the group’s known involvement with several African governments, Miller urged complicit leaders in Africa and other regions to cease their dealings with the Wagner Group. Miller was also displeased with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko’s decision to grant safe harbor to Prigozhin, stating that it was another instance of Lukashenko overlooking the Belarusian people’s interests in favor of Putin’s and the Kremlin’s interests.

As these illicit gold operations are reduced, legitimate actors such as Royal Gold Inc. (NASDAQ: RGLD) will have more space within which to operate and thrive.

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