Wagner Still Thriving Despite Prigozhin's Death; 28-Year-Old Son Expands Business

The son of Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led an armed rebellion in Russia and subsequently died in a plane crash, has reportedly taken over the African operations of the private mercenary group Wagner and is generating massive profits.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 18th (local time) that Pavel Prigozhin (28), the son of Yevgeny, has been expanding operations in the Central African Republic, a key stronghold for the Wagner Group in Africa, following his father's death.

The Wagner Group is a private mercenary organization that has carried out military operations in Ukraine, Africa, and elsewhere with the backing of the Russian government.

In Africa, the group expanded its influence by securing natural resource development concessions, such as gold mines, in exchange for providing military support to local regimes.

Following the death of Yevgeny, then-head of the Wagner Group, in a mysterious plane crash in August 2023, Pavel, who was 25 at the time, inherited his father's major business ventures.

While Pavel was known in his youth as a wealthy playboy who enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle aboard private jets and ultra-luxury yachts, he has since been evaluated as showing considerable acumen in the mercenary business following his father's death.

According to the Geneva-based international crime research organization Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, the annual revenue generated from the legal and illegal businesses of the Prigozhin family, including the Wagner Group, is estimated to exceed 400 million dollars (approx. 535.1 billion KRW).

Some 500 mercenaries commanded by Pavel control gold mines in the Central African Republic while providing personal security for President Faustin-Archange Touadéra and conducting anti-rebel operations.

Building on this military leverage, the Wagner Group has expanded its business beyond gold mining into arms trading, drug trafficking, and alcohol production.

Pavel is known to have inherited his father's arms-dealing network, selling weapons to rebels in Sudan and Libya.

Crucial to Pavel's ability to maintain his father's business was the support of the Central African Republic government.

Following Prigozhin's death in 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to seize control of the Wagner Group's domestic operations in Russia and absorb its African mercenary organization into the Ministry of Defense's "Africa Corps."

However, facing threats from rebels and heavily reliant on the Wagner Group's military support, President Touadéra asked the Russian government not to replace existing Wagner mercenaries with regular Russian troops.

Touadéra also helped sustain Pavel's influence by integrating Wagner mercenaries into local military, police, and intelligence agencies.

Pavel resides in St. Petersburg, Russia, while regularly traveling back and forth to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic, to manage the business.

Some analysts suggest that the Russian government is effectively tolerating Pavel's business activities.

Lou Osborne, an investigator at the Swiss nonprofit organization All Eyes on Wagner (Impact), said, "Pavel being allowed to continue running operations could mean there was some sort of deal struck with the Kremlin, or that the Russian government has judged him not to be a threat."

Concerns are also rising that the Wagner Group is degenerating from a military organization into an organized crime syndicate.

According to the WSJ, Wagner mercenaries in the Central African Republic pursued and assaulted a merchant who was operating independently outside their drug distribution network.

The merchant has since gone missing, and even his survival remains unconfirmed.

Investigator Osborne assessed, "Wagner used to be an organization with the character of a powerful special forces unit, but after breaking away from Russian government backing, it appears to be increasingly lapsing into organized crime."

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.