Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Car Mali Wagner topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Witness: Wagner remnants persist in Central Africa, linked to illicit activity
Summary
A witness said the Central African Republic remains a Wagner holdout and that Wagner remnants continue involvement in drug running and mineral trade despite shifts in formal alignment.
A witness told the Commission the Central African Republic (CAR) remains a significant Wagner holdout and that Wagner personnel have been a presence in Central Africa since about 2018. "With the CAR, that is the last real kind of Wagner holdout," the witness said, and noted resistance from Central African leadership to uprooting or subsuming Wagner personnel under a national defense ministry.
The witness also said those remnants help explain continued illicit activity in the region: "they're still involved with drug running, mineral stuff," the witness said, adding that some of that activity persists at levels or in "shades of what Wagner had been doing previously." The testimony connected personnel presence, local resistance to reform, and ongoing criminal economies as mutually reinforcing factors.
The transcript records the witness's account and interpretation; it does not include corroborating documents or named local officials endorsing the described arrangements. No formal motion or vote followed this testimony in the hearing record.
