# Meroe Gold **Meroe Gold** is the Sudanese subsidiary of [[M Invest]] through which [[Yevgeny Prigozhin]]'s network mined and exported gold from [[Sudan]], working from a gold-processing plant near al-Ibaidiya in northern Sudan, operated through a Sudanese front company, al-Solag. If M Invest is the paper parent, Meroe Gold is the operator: the company on the ground with the concessions, the processing plant and the export flights. ## How the model worked Prigozhin's Africa business ran on a simple trade. The [[Wagner Group]] provided regime protection, military training and political consulting; local rulers paid in mining rights. In Sudan the deal was struck with [[Omar al-Bashir]] in 2017 (see [[M Invest]]), and Meroe Gold turned it into gold. A 2022 CNN and Dossier Center investigation called Meroe Gold "Prigozhin's main vehicle in Sudan." It traced **16 Russian flights** out of Sudan over 18 months, and a whistleblower spreadsheet it obtained showed **32.7 tons of gold** unaccounted for in 2021. CNN could not independently verify all of the figures. The gold business also tied Wagner to the family of [[Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo]], whose [[Rapid Support Forces]] controlled much of Darfur's gold. That relationship survived Bashir's fall in 2019 and outlasted the 2021 coup. ## Sanctions | Date | Action | |---|---| | Jul 15, 2020 | U.S. Treasury sanctions Meroe Gold as owned or controlled by M Invest, which it called a cover for Wagner in Sudan | | Feb 2023 | EU sanctions the company, saying Wagner "has secured the right to mine Sudanese gold" and kept operating through a Sudanese shell | | Jul 2023 | UK sanctions follow | ## After Prigozhin Prigozhin died in an August 2023 plane crash, and Russia's defense ministry absorbed Wagner's African operations into its [[Africa Corps]]. In Sudan, Moscow has since hedged between the two sides of the civil war, courting Burhan's army while its old business partners sat with the RSF, according to Middle East Eye's 2024 reporting. Who now controls Meroe Gold's concessions has not been publicly established. ## See Also - [[M Invest]] · [[Lobaye Invest]] · [[Sudan]] · [[Wagner Group]] · [[Africa Corps]] - [[Rapid Support Forces]] · [[Security-for-Minerals]] · [[Gold]]