Stanyard, Julia
2025
Mercenaries and illicit markets: Russia’s Africa Corps and the business of conflict
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
The Wagner Group mercenary force and its successor, the Africa Corps, have played a pivotal and controversial role in growing Russia’s influence on the African continent. Initially a covert proxy of the Russian state able to exercise some deniability, the Wagner Group soon became the most influential and public form of Russian engagement in Africa, particularly in the Sahel and Central Africa. Wagner was unique in the scale and boldness of its activities and in navigating the grey zone where licit and illicit economies meld. Implicated in murders, massacres, rapes, and other atrocities in some African countries, its mercenaries have been accused of terrorizing civilian populations, carrying out industrial-scale smuggling of gold, diamonds, and timber, notably in the Central African Republic (CAR), spearheading political disinformation campaigns and election-rigging. This paper reviews how Russia’s Wagner Group and the Africa Corps have developed since the death of Wagner’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in August 2023. It includes their evolving role in illicit markets and the implications for African peace and security. It builds on research published in the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) ‘s February 2023 report, The Grey Zone: Russia’s Military, Mercenary and Criminal Engagement in Africa.