The latent crisis between Algiers and Abu Dhabi is now out in the open. This week, the X network (formerly Twitter) is flooded with hundreds of messages, oscillating between reproaches and hostilities, between Emirati internet users and, on the other side, Algerians or other nationalities defending Algiers’ position. The intensity of these less-than-cordial exchanges is...
Tag: Mali
UAE’s Troubling Support for Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa
One targeted company, Industrial Resources General Trading, is a Dubai-based company sanctioned for importing gold from the Central African Republic and paying the Russian mercenary outfit in cash sent directly to Moscow. It is the first Emirati company sanctioned in relation to Wagner. OFAC previously targeted another United Arab Emirates (UAE) based firm, Kratol Aviation, for...
Wagner’s real money never came from diamonds and gold
Wagner’s businesses in Africa isolate and create dependent economies, not funding for private armies. The US Treasury Department on Tuesday sanctioned gold and diamond mining concerns connected to the Wagner group in Mali and the Central African Republic after Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary group’s founder, attempted to stage a mutiny in Russia last weekend. The gold and diamond mining enterprises, as...