United States designates Wagner Group as transnational criminal organization

“Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Contr (OFAC) is designating the Wagner Group as a significant transnational criminal organization,” reads the press release of the U.S. Department of State.

As noted, the Wagner Group’s pattern of serious criminal behavior includes vient harassment of journalists, aid workers, and members of minority groups and harassment, obstruction, and intimidation of UN peacekeepers in the Central African Republic (CAR), as well as rape and killings in Mali.

Concurrently, OFAC is designating Wagner pursuant to E.O. 13667 for being responsible for or complicit in, or having engaged in, the targeting of women, children, or any civilians through the commission of acts of vience, or abduction, forced displacement, or attacks on schos, hospitals, religious sites, or locations where civilians are seeking refuge, or through conduct that would constitute a serious abuse or viation of human rights or a viation of international humanitarian law in relation to CAR.

Read also: Treasury hits Russian defense industry, Wagner Group with more sanctions

As reported, on Thursday the U.S. government announced new sanctions against Russia, in particular against the Wagner Group and its leader Yevgen Prigozhin due to their invvement in waging a brutal war in Ukraine, as well as destabilization and criminal activities in the countries of the African continent.