“Putin’s Chef” went to mine gold in Africa

As The Bell learned, after the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev with Sudanese President Omar Bashir, a company associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin began to search for gold in this country. The fighters of PMC "Wagner" also went there.

Details

• In November, an unknown company, M Invest, in the presence of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Sudanese President Omar Bashir, signed an agreement to obtain a concession for several sites for exploration and gold mining in Sudan. As The Bell found out, its specialists have already gone to this country, as well as the fighters of the Wagner PMC, which is also associated with Prigozhin.
• Putin's meeting with the President of Sudan took place at the end of November 2017 at the Bocharov Ruchei residence in Sochi, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu attended the talks. These negotiations were serviced by Prigozhin's catering company Concord M, according to one of The Bell's interlocutors.
• with Bashir At the same time, Medvedev met . The government website says that following the negotiations, several agreements were signed , including concession agreements for gold mining between the Ministry of Mineral Resources of the Republic of Sudan and M Invest LLC. The firm's Sudan arm, Meroe Gold, has already begun exploration in Sudan, two people familiar with the November talks told The Bell. Both claim that M Invest represents the interests of Prigozhin. The publication “Genline” draws attention to this in its blog on Medium.
• Exploration is being carried out at five sites, in total, about 50 geologists and other specialists are involved in the work, says one of The Bell's interlocutors. It is not clear how much production the company expects. As of 2016, Sudan ranked third in Africa's gold production, with production in excess of 90 tons per year. According to the Chinese Xinhua News Agency, last year production in Sudan exceeded 100 tons.

Context

• The civil war in Sudan has hardly stopped since the country gained independence in 1956. After Bashir's talks with the Russian authorities, not only Russian geologists, but also employees of private military companies went to Sudan (the wrote BBC Russian Service about this in December). PMC Wagner mercenaries are now training the military units of the government of Sudan, according to four interlocutors of The Bell, including from competing structures. One of them specified that the number of the contingent exceeds a hundred people. It was not possible to find out whether they are engaged in the protection of the sites that M Invest received in the concession, and civilian specialists who arrived from Russia. But such a scheme of work of Prigozhin’s structure has already been tested in Syria: there they are counting on a quarter of oil and gas production from fields that are reclaimed and guarded by PMC forces.
• Yevgeny Prigozhin is familiar with Vladimir Putin from St. Petersburg - there the entrepreneur was engaged in the development of the restaurant business, Putin visited his establishments. In recent years, Prigozhin's companies have served as the president's manager and received large contracts from the Ministry of Defense.
• Prigozhin has been under U.S. sanctions since late 2016, and the U.S. recently accused him and a dozen employees of the so-called “troll factory” of interfering in American elections. It is believed that Prigogine sponsored its creation.

Read more: Gold in exchange for mercenaries: how “Putin’s chef” gets Russia the “key to Africa”

Anastasia Yakoreva