“Putin’s Cook” in the African forest

Private military company (PMC) Wagnerassociated with “Putin’s chef” – a St. Petersburg businessman Evgeny Prigozhinhas recently distinguished itself not only recruitment Russian prisoners for the war with Ukraine. This PMC is still active in Africa and provides firms associated with Prigozhin with access to ever new natural resources.

“Important Stories” publishes a joint investigation conducted by European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) media network* and a French non-governmental by OpenFacto**. They found that in 2021, a company associated with Prigozhin’s structures received a logging permit in the Central African Republic (CAR) and now exploits 186,000 hectares of forest inhabited by large populations of gorillas, leopards and elephants in the southwest of the country. The investigation was carried out jointly with the German magazine Spiegel, the Belgian Le Soir, the French online publication Mediapart and other media.

As it turned out, the structure associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin pressed the French in the forestry business in the republic. In 2021, timber was the main export of the CARs, ahead of diamonds. According to the UN report, eleven companies were involved in exports in this segment in the CAR. And in February last year, a new player appeared on the local market – the previously unknown company Bois Rouge. Having won a government tender, she received a concession in the Lobae forest in the southwest of the country (a plot of 186,000 hectares).

Previously, the license was held by Batalimo Forest Industries, the oldest logging company with French interests. On July 18, 2019, the CAR authorities revoked her license. And at the beginning of 2021, the forest area was taken over by Bois Rouge. On its website (which is no longer active), the company referred to itself as “one of the largest African logging” offices. Bois Rouge presents itself as a 100% Central African company incorporated in March 2019 and managed by national citizen Anastasia Nanet Yakoima. But in fact, everything is more complicated. “Everyone knows that this is a Russian company,” says one of the industry players.

Is the right to exploit the Central African forest a payment for the services of the Wagner PMC, whose fighters provide protection for the President of the Central African Republic, Foster Archange Touadéra, and fight the rebels side by side with the armed forces of the republic? It is only known that Bois Rouge received the African forest for exploitation on very favorable terms, which were not provided to any other company.

The EIC and OpenFacto received official documents governing the activities of Bois Rouge, which until now have remained secret. The interim operating agreement between CAR and Bois Rouge dated April 28, 2021 and the final operating agreement dated December 3, 2021 are no match for the six contracts signed by CAR with other companies between 2014 and 2020.

Bois Rouge was allowed to exploit the entire area of ​​forest for which it had received a concession, even before the signing of the “final exploitation agreement”. Other logging companies have the right to use only part of their concession – usually about one-eighth of its area.

Conventional forestry contracts define cutting areas (where logging is allowed) that are changed each year to allow the forest to recover. And the agreement with Bois Rouge states that cutting areas are valid for three years and cutting areas can be resumed at the simple request of Bois Rouge.

In addition, the CAR government has granted Bois Rouge generous tax and customs benefits. Bois Rouge enjoys exemptions on import duties, reduced to 5% for five years, exempt from corporate tax for five years (then it is reduced to 25% for another year). And then there’s an eight-year property tax exemption (on all new buildings and structures), a quarter-reduced social development contribution, and a five-year business license exemption.

Bois Rouge has not received large volumes of wood yet. Two people familiar with the matter indicate that the company cut down a relatively small number of trees, estimated to be less than a few hundred cubic meters, which were then exported via Cameroon. “It looks like they are in the testing phase,” one of the sources said.

Commenting on the situation, the director of Bois Rouge, Anastasia Nanet Yakoima, said that the company “fully complies with the requirements and rules.” But she declined to answer detailed questions because that, she said, would lead to the disclosure of “confidential information.”

Will wood from Prigogine appear in Europe

At the moment it is impossible to know to which countries this wood has already been exported or will be supplied. Bois Rouge does not comment on this, neither does the local authorities.

Several European countries import timber from Central Africa, including Spain (at least until 2019), France, Italy, Portugal, Germany and Belgium. Total, according to EU dataimports of wood (and its derivatives, coal and cork) from the CAR to the EU increased by 62% in 2021 and reached 11 million euros.

Does Bois Rouge wood ship to Europe or could it happen soon? Theoretically, this is prohibited for two reasons: European rules against illegal logging and EU sanctions against PMCs Wagner and Prigozhin. But now there is no guarantee that the existing control measures are sufficient to prevent Bois Rouge from selling its timber from Central Africa to Europe.

In 2005 and 2020, the EU adopted two regulations aimed at stopping the illegal exploitation of forests. In particular, they have created a system to be implemented by importers to ensure that timber from illegal harvesting does not enter the EU market. But the European Commission, in a December 2021 report, came to conclusionthat these two instruments have not fully achieved their goals.

“Privacy rules in the European Union make it difficult to trace wood from the source to the company directly importing the wood,” says Marigold Norman, a wood expert who works with the NGO Forrest Trends. In addition, today there are limited penalties for companies that have been caught breaking the rules. In some cases, such fines are simply an acceptable part of the cost of purchasing high-value tropical timber.

*European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) brings together thirteen European media outlets and is the coordinator of several international investigative journalism.

**OpenFacto is a French non-profit organization that specializes in the research of publicly available data. Organizations launched a research project “All eyes on PMC Wagner”which studies the activities of the group around the world.