FT: Prigozhin received $250 million in profits from companies that extract resources in Syria and the Central African Republic and are under sanctions

The founder of PMC Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, until December 2021 received $250 million in profit from the activities of companies that are engaged in the extraction of oil, gas, diamonds and gold in Syria, the Central African Republic and Sudan and are under sanctions, the found out Financial Times newspaper .

Journalists also analyzed the financial reports of the companies Europolis, M Invest and Mercury. According to FT, the first agreed with Bashar al-Assad to liberate the oil and gas fields of Syria from ISIS militants, and in return received concessions for fuel production. It has been under American sanctions since 2018, and under European sanctions since 2019.

According to the FT, the restrictions had little impact on the company's operations. In 2020, it had revenue of $134 million and revenue of $90 million; a year later, Europolis made a profit of 400 thousand dollars, but still had 92 million on its balance sheet.

M Invest, which mines gold in Sudan, was hit by US sanctions in 2020 but had revenue of $2.6 million the following year. Two more companies, whose names were not given, according to journalists, “shipped large quantities of industrial equipment” to enterprises associated with Wagner PMC in the Central African Republic and Sudan and earned more than $6 million in 2021.

The Mercury company is also associated with the extraction of natural resources in Syria; in 2021, the EU imposed sanctions against it. The publication emphasized that three years earlier she earned $67 million, but subsequently reported “zero revenue.”

in September 2022 Businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was included in the US sanctions list in 2016, only confirmed that he founded the Wagner PMC - before that he denied any connection with the company.

The European Union imposed sanctions against Wagner PMC in December 2021 due to the mercenaries’ responsibility “for serious human rights violations in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic, Sudan and Mozambique, including torture and extrajudicial, mass or arbitrary executions and murders.” " The UN also accused the fighters of a series of attacks in the CAR and human rights violations - illegal detentions, rape, torture and executions.