The US Treasury Department on June 27 imposed sanctions on four companies involved in gold trading and an individual it said had conducted arms transactions linked to the Wagner Group.
“The Wagner Group funds its brutal activities in part by exploiting natural resources in countries like the Central African Republic and Mali. The United States will continue to target Wagner Group revenue sources to curtail its expansion and violence in Africa, Ukraine, and elsewhere,” said Brian E. Nelson, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
The Biden administration has designated Wagner a transnational criminal organization since January and has sought to use sanctions to choke off its financial resources. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Ivan Maslov, Wagner’s head of operations in Mali, in May for trying to source weapons through the African country for use in Ukraine.
US President Biden affirmed on June 26 that the US and its allies had nothing to do with the Wagner group's uprising in Russia. Photo: The Guardian
Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group and a longtime ally of Mr Putin, over the weekend launched a surprise uprising against Russia’s military leadership, seizing control of a southern military headquarters and directing his troops toward Moscow.
The uprising was short-lived, however. On June 24, Prigozhin withdrew his troops and accepted a deal brokered by Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. According to Lukashenko, Prigozhin arrived in Belarus on June 27.
President Biden and other US officials have been at pains to stress that the US had no role in last week’s uprising, warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin could seek to blame foreign powers for the Wagner mutiny.
Measures against the Wagner group had been planned earlier but were briefly postponed as US officials sought to avoid appearing to take sides in the power struggle between mercenary group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The US has also previously sanctioned Prigozhin for his efforts to interfere in the country's 2016 presidential election.
A Russian citizen is also the target of US sanctions for allegedly working closely with the organization of Wagner tycoon Yevgeny Prigozhin. Photo: NBC News
The companies sanctioned on June 27 include Midas Ressources SARLU and Diamville SAU based in the Central African Republic, Dubai-based industrial resources trading company General Trading and Russia-based DM Limited.
The US Treasury Department accused the companies of blocking officials from inspecting gold mines, shipping diamonds mined in Africa to overseas buyers, and intentionally funneling cash from gold sales to companies linked to Prigozhin to evade US sanctions on Russian financial institutions.
The targeted individual, Andrey Nikolayevich Ivanov, is a Russian executive in the Wagner Group who is believed to have worked closely with Prigozhin's organization and senior Malian government officials on Wagner Group's arms deals, mining and other operations in Mali, the US Treasury Department said .
Nguyen Tuyet (According to CNN, WRTV, The Guardian, The Hill)
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