WSJ: In Central Africa, the remnants of the PMC “Wagner” have created a drug empire that the Kremlin does not control

About 500 Russian PMC “Wagner” fighters remain in the upper Ubanga River in northern Central African Republic. They have built a drug empire around tramadol, an opioid painkiller that in large doses becomes a powerful stimulant. It is also called “cocaine for the poor”.

This is reported by The Wall Street Journal, citing former mercenaries and investigators.

The mercenaries in the region are led by the son of the deceased founder of the PMC “Wagner” Yevgeny Prigozhin, Pavlo Prigozhin. The Kremlin does not control them. The former PMC “Wagner”, who now lives in Europe, said that the PMC supplies drugs to the soldiers of the CAR presidential guard and the Sharks youth militia, which regularly organizes armed patrols in the countryʼs capital and attacks opposition supporters.

Tramadol is manufactured in India and shipped to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The drugs are then transported along the Ubangi River to the CAR, where the PMC “Wagner” sells them.

At the PMC “Wagner” gold mines, miners use tramadol to sustain long hours of work, and militants themselves use it in combat to dull their fear. The tramadol trade helps militants control gold production in the country. The PMC “Wagner” earns an estimated $180 million annually from illegal gold exports from the CAR.

• After Prigozhin’s march on Moscow in June 2023 and his death in August of the same year, most of the PMC “Wagner” fighters transferred to the service of the Russian troops. In Africa, the PMC “Wagner” operations were taken over by the African Corps, which is controlled by the Russian government and commanded by Major General of the Russian military intelligence (GRU) Andrei Averyanov.
• It is Averyanov who is linked to the Novichok poisoning of former GRU officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, in 2018, the explosions at military warehouses in the Czech Republic in 2014, and the murder of Prigozhin.

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