Wagner-controlled logging company Bois Rouge has changed its name to Wood International Group (WIG) and supplies African timber, which continues to be in high demand, to EU countries through Cameroon. This follows from a report by the non-profit organization Earthsight, as well as an investigation by the All Eyes On Wagner (AEOW) initiative group, which monitors the activities of PMCs around the world.
AEOW conducted an investigation with the support of CBS News and found that after the first material published in 2022 about the connection between Bois Rouge and PMC Wagner, the company changed its name, hired a new director from Central Africa and a new Russian commercial director. To avoid scrutiny, the "new" WIG uses a non-transparent logistics system and a military camp in Kassai, while Cameroon has become a logistics platform for the Wagner group. In 2022, the company exported 465 cubic meters of sapele wood to the EU countries, and became the seventh largest wood exporter to the EU from the Central African Republic.
At the same time, WoodGroup ApS23, the Danish subsidiary of Woodbois Limited24, which is listed on the London AIM Stock Exchange and which was part of the national delegation to the UN Climate Change Conference in 2021 in Glasgow, is involved in the trade. She was Bois Rouge's biggest customer in the EU before it was involved in the scandal. According to customs documents, Bois Rouge shipped three shipments of sapele wood to Woodbois' Danish division last year: two in April 2022 and another in mid-June. Woodbois describes itself as "the world's leading African timber trader" and is also vocal about its "greenness" and commitment to "ensuring ethical and honest conduct and fighting corruption".
Another secret contractor is SEFCA, the largest logging company in the Central African Republic, previously caught financing rebels guilty of murders and war crimes. The company was the largest supplier of CAR wood to the EU last year, with large volumes of goods coming to Belgium, France and Italy. It is one of six firms in the country to receive a zero percentage for transparency on the Open Timber Portal, a project of the World Resources Institute (WRI) environmental think tank that allows timber merchants to verify suppliers in the Congo Basin. In 2013, SEFCA paid hundreds of thousands of euros to the Séléka rebel group, which briefly took over the capital.
Customs data show that timber shipments to the EU continued even after the leading European media wrote about the connection of PMC mercenaries with Bois Rouge. European and international companies have been buying timber all this time and, as Earthsight notes, have become victims of Wagner's activities. Midas Resources, Wagner's goldmine, supplied processing equipment, and European/international customers bought timber from Bois Rouge/WIG. Thus, WIG was able to buy equipment from a European company for 936,675.05 euros, and then sold wood with a customs value of 322,793.56 euros to European and international customers in 2022-2023.
Earthsight's findings suggest lax oversight of record tropical timber imports from a country with a "non-transparent forest management system," the text notes. Bois Rouge/WIG continues to benefit from a very lucrative agreement with the government of the Central African Republic (CAR): the company has received tax and other financial advantages, access to a piece of land and full control over it. The government of the Central African Republic granted the then-named Bois Rouge the rights to cut down rainforest, home to elephants, gorillas and leopards, in an area larger than the area of London. The company does not have a plan for the conservation of the environment, African pygmies aka leave the area due to continuous industrial activity.
Bois Rouge’s previous commercial director, Artem Tolmachev, worked for two well-known companies affiliated with Wagner PMC founder Yevgeny Prigozhin: Service K LLC and Ferrum Mining LLC, which was a shareholder in a now abandoned mining project in Madagascar. The text notes that Service K LLC is an important structure in Prigozhin's empire, it controls all personnel aspects and recruitment. According to investigators, Bois Rouge/WIG is also affiliated with Prigozhin: the company is associated with Broker Expert, which is controlled by him. In November 2021, Bois Rouge and Broker Expert concluded twenty-eight deals, the journalists found out.
In 2022, All Eyes on Wagner also conducted an investigation based on open source data and found out that Wagner PMC received a 30-year forestry permit in the Congo Basin region. This land, according to investigators, is one of the most significant areas of undeveloped rainforest in the world. Prigozhin’s mercenaries were already in control of the CAR town of Boda by the time Bois Rouge won a tender to operate the forestry on a reimbursable basis in 2021. Around the same time, the FACA (Central African Government Army), with the support of Wagner PMC mercenaries, launched a military operation to remove rebel groups from the region. With the exploitation of 30% of the Congo Basin, the potential income from the sale of timber on international markets could reach up to $890 million. Therefore, the continued export of timber could be a profitable business for Prigozhin PMC, the report says.
The founder of PMC Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is under US sanctions. In 2021, he was put on the FBI's Most Wanted list, but he continues to earn hundreds of millions of dollars from mining. Thus, the company associated with it, Euro Polis, received from the government of Bashar al-Assad a concession in the energy sector of Syria in exchange for the services of PMC Wagner: mercenaries liberated several oil fields seized by the Islamic State. Euro Polis has been under sanctions since 2018, which did not prevent the company from receiving $90 million in net profit in 2020. Also, business structures associated with Prigozhin continue to operate in Sudan and the Central African Republic.
The US Treasury has declared the Wagner PMC a transnational criminal organization involved in criminal activities, including mass executions, rape, child abduction and physical abuse.