Putin’s Wagner mercenaries go rogue and build drug empire instead of fighting

War often leaves pure chaos behind when the formal fighting stops.

But sometimes, the soldiers who stay behind find entirely new ways to fund their operations in the shadows.

A new shadow business

Remnants of the Wagner Group have built a new criminal empire in the Central African Republic.

After the death of founder Yevgeny Prigozhin, these mercenaries shifted their focus toward illegal drugs.

They now run a massive trafficking network for tramadol. The Wall Street Journal detailed the sprawling operation in a recent investigation according to Ziare.

The illegal trade centers around the remote Ubangi River basin. Local authorities have very little power there, and Moscow reportedly struggles to control the rogue fighters.

Pavel Prigozhin, the son of the late founder, reportedly oversees these ongoing African operations.

Poor man’s cocaine

Doctors normally prescribe tramadol to treat severe pain. But the pills behave very differently when abused.

In massive doses, the opioid acts as a powerful stimulant. People across several African nations now call it the “poor man’s cocaine.”

Wagner pushes the drug on local workers to force longer shifts in the gold mines they control. They also supply the pills to armed factions.

Natalia Duhan is a researcher at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. She stated that heavy doses reduce fear and boost excitement for fighters in active conflict zones.

Smuggling down the river

The complex smuggling route begins thousands of miles away in India. Factories legally export the medicine as standard medical supplies.

The shipments eventually land in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Smugglers then repackage the boxes and move them across the river.

According to researchers cited by The Wall Street Journal, some of these packages hide pills with dangerously high concentrations.

This illegal trade brings in massive profits. The local street price for the drug has completely tripled over the past year alone.

Funding future violence

Around 500 fighters currently guard the regional gold mines. Those remote digging sites pull in roughly 180 million dollars every year.

Tramadol trafficking provides a vital second stream of dirty money. A single drug shipment worth 7,000 dollars can quickly generate 21,000 dollars in street sales.

Traffickers use that cash to buy weapons and pay bribes. The money keeps the entire mercenary network heavily armed.

That steady cash flow has devastating real-world effects. Researchers link the expanding opioid trade directly to a recent 20 percent spike in armed conflict victims.

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, Ziare.com

This article is made and published by Kathrine Frich, who may have used AI in the preparation