# M Invest **M Invest** is the Russian company owned or controlled by [[Yevgeny Prigozhin]] that the U.S. Treasury says "serves as a cover for PMC Wagner forces operating in Sudan." It is the parent of the Sudan operation: M Invest held the concessions and the political relationship, and its local subsidiary [[Meroe Gold]] did the mining. ## The Bashir deal M Invest received gold-mining concessions in [[Sudan]] in **2017** under [[Omar al-Bashir]], in the same period Bashir asked Moscow for protection against what he called American aggression. According to Treasury, Wagner went beyond mining: it drew up plans for Bashir's government to suppress the 2018–2019 protests, including disinformation against protesters. The protests toppled him anyway in April 2019. The gold operation carried on under the generals who replaced him. ## Sanctions | Date | Action | |---|---| | 2017 | Gold concessions in Sudan | | Jul 15, 2020 | U.S. Treasury sanctions M Invest and Meroe Gold, plus employees Andrei Mandel and Mikhail Potepkin | | Feb 2023 | EU sanctions M Invest and its head | | Jul 2023 | UK sanctions M Invest | ## Where it fits M Invest is one node in a pattern repeated across the continent: a Prigozhin-controlled company takes resource rights as payment for security and political services. In the [[Central African Republic]] the equivalent role belonged to [[Lobaye Invest]], and some sanctions researchers describe Lobaye as an M Invest subsidiary, while Treasury ties it to a different Prigozhin firm, M Finans. The model is described in [[Security-for-Minerals]]. After Prigozhin's death in 2023 these networks passed to the Russian state's [[Africa Corps]]. Read [[Meroe Gold]] for the operating detail, the gold-flight reporting and what happened to the business after Prigozhin. ## See Also - [[Meroe Gold]] · [[Lobaye Invest]] · [[Sudan]] · [[Wagner Group]] · [[Yevgeny Prigozhin]] - [[Omar al-Bashir]] · [[Security-for-Minerals]] · [[Gold]]