United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (2024:3): “despite the inclusion of financial elements in the various international and regional legal definitions of mercenarism and the criminalization of the financing of mercenarism, the actual financing of mercenaries and related actors is largely underexamined.”
United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (2024:3): “The financing of mercenarism occurs in two distinct ways. The first way is at a “macro” level, whereby mercenary operations are funded primarily by States and/or their proxies. States may pay or be paid for the services of mercenaries and related actors. Funds are used for the purchase of weapons and materiel, and for the provision of financial compensation for individual mercenaries, but a substantial profit motive is also present. Logistical and in-kind support may also be supplied. The second way mercenarism occurs is at a “micro” level, whereby individual mercenaries are paid for their services and may receive pecuniary and/or non-pecuniary remuneration.”
United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (2024:7): “It is important to emphasize the relationship between criminality and self-financing among current and former mercenaries at the individual level, given its implications for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration efforts. Mercenaries are increasingly reported to be involved in criminality, including smuggling, banditry and predation, particularly when ceasefires are implemented. Often this is driven by necessity, as contracts and financial disbursements end, but also by opportunity, with mercenaries able to exploit or join vibrant regional criminal ecosystems.”
United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (2024:7-8): “Mercenaries and related actors are financed by and profit from a variety of different sources at the macro and micro levels and across the globe. These include the exploitation of natural resources, illicit drugs, arms trafficking, online frauds and scams, in-kind support services and intelligence gathering, and involve multiple States, corporate entities and individuals, among others. Funds generated and payments made are funnelled through the traditional international banking system and cash payments, as well as through alternative banking systems by way of cryptocurrencies and crowd-funding initiatives. There are also overlaps with and parallels to other illicit financial flows associated with the funding of terrorism, transnational organized crime, human trafficking, drug trafficking, arms trafficking and the payment of modern piracy ransoms, among others.”
United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (2024:7-11): Examples of financing: selling weapons on the dark net; manufacturing and distributing illegal drugs; using social networks and other online platforms to raise funds, ostensibly in the name of supporting a cause or the families of those killed in a conflict; malware; exchanges of services; intelligence gathering.
United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (2024:13-14): Types of state support: direct financing; channeling money through state proxies; providing access to natural resources; access to military planes, equipment, and infrastructure (physical and administrative).
Klein (2025): Highlights a hybrid financing model: some money comes from the federal centre, primarily through the Ministry of Defence; some comes from regional administrations; and some comes from business.