According to the publication, the Wagnerites, led by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, secretly control gold mining in Sudan.
At the same time, Western officials are convinced that this Sudanese gold is being brought into Russia through various mechanisms of smuggling and money laundering, secretly replenishing government gold and foreign exchange reserves.
It is noted that back in 2017, the then President of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, offered Putin to give mineral deposits under the control of the Russian Federation in exchange for military support for his regime by Russian soldiers. Then the Kremlin decided to send the Wagner PMC to Sudan.
Later, the mining company Meroe Gold was registered in Sudan, which paid for flights from Russia to Sudan for geologists and mineralogists.
According to the NYT, the gold mined by the above-named company is illegally exported from Sudan through the territory of the UAE.
In April 2019, a military coup took place in Sudan. Immediately after the mutiny, Prigozhin’s private plane flew to the capital of Sudan, Khartoum, with several officials of the Russian Defense Ministry. Representatives of the new regime in Sudan, in particular, the brother of General Hamdan, who led the coup, flew back to Moscow by plane. Thus, the “Wagnerites” began to support the new regime.
The NYT added that, according to the Sudanese, who advocate the establishment of democracy, it was Moscow that became the main initiator of the military coup.
“Russia supported the coup to steal our gold,” read posters on the streets of Sudanese cities.
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