French Le Monde “found” a source of funding for PMC Wagner in Mali

The financing of the units of the Russian private military company in Mali is carried out through the National State Security Agency (ANSE) of the West African country, reports Le Monde on February 3.

A French newspaper tried to find sources of funding for the Wagner Group in Mali, stressing that the deployment of a Russian PMC in the West African country is strategic. “because it undermines the influence of the West, especially France”.

“Even before the deployment of the Russian PMC in Mali, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s people began exploring in the country’s gold mining industry” – points out the French edition, adding that “However, their raids have not yet led to the signing of any mineral extraction contract, not a single capture of the mines has been made”.

At the same time, an official Malian document dated July 30, 2022 fell into the hands of the publication, in which corrections were made to the budget of the Malian intelligence service “National State Security Agency” (ANSE).

The document indicates a sharp increase in the costs of this structure. Thus, the financing of ANSE this year has gone from 2,000 million CFA francs (232 million rubles) to 71,400 million CFA francs (8,313 million rubles).

The spending limit has also been increased from CFAF 13.7 billion to CFAF 103.7 billion.

“The redistribution of budget funds between institutions or ministries that do not correspond to any public expenditure is a common practice if someone wants to disguise payments”said the Le Monde source.

The publication also notes that the amount of the increase in budget financing is almost in line with the contract of 6 billion CFA francs per month (698 million rubles), mentioned in September 2021 by the Reuters news agency, when the state of Mali was still negotiating with the Wagner Group. The amount was later confirmed by US General Stephen Townsend, commander of Africom.

Source: Rossa Primavera