The group has gained control over the Central African Republic’s largest gold mine, Ndassima.
This was in exchange for propping up the government of President Faustin-Archange Touadéra amid an ongoing civil war in the country, according to a report published in December.
The report, “Blood Gold”, produced by the charities Consumer Choice Center and 21Democracy, claimed Wagner was producing an estimated $290m worth of gold annually, with the Ndassima site thought to contain deposits worth $2.8bn overall.
Wagner is said to smuggle gold out of the country using methods borrowed from organized crime groups, such as transporting the goods overland to nearby countries such as Cameroon or Sudan and then selling them via trusted contacts.
The group is also thought to have used private jets instead of cargo plans to transport gold by air to avoid international controls.
At the same time, it is said to have brutally crushed the rival operations of artisanal miners in the areas surrounding the Ndassima mine.
Elsewhere in Sudan, Wagner controls a major gold refinery and has used Russian military plans to ship the metal out of the country.
In Mali, the group is paid a reported $11m per month to protect private mining operations sanctioned by the ruling military junta.
Once the gold has been extracted from Africa, it is thought to be laundered in Russia-friendly jurisdictions, such as the United Arab Emirates, the Blood Gold report said.
The Kremlin has earned more than $2.5bn from the trade of African gold since February 2022, when Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a report published in December.
