Beyond the paramilitary group Wagner, Evgueni Prigojine brought together nearly 400 companies within his holding company, Concord Group. It was a data leak orchestrated by anonymous hackers that made it possible to trace the thread of these activities.
The Wagner group is maneuvering in Ukraine, particularly in the offensive on Bakhmout in the Donbass. But the activities of Wagner and his boss Yevgeny Prigojine extend far beyond Ukraine. The Russian-language online media Dossier Center, an opposition media outlet founded by dissident Mikhail Khodorkovskycollected a veritable mine of information about the Prigozhin galaxy. More than a million internal documents, the WagnerLeaks, were recovered by a group of anonymous computer hackers and notably exploited by Dossier Center, and they make it possible to measure the extent of the activities and the influence of Evgueni Prigojine.
And it’s a real little empire that is taking shape. The companies managed by Evgueni Prigojine include of course the Wagner group, the well-known private military company active in Ukraine, Libya or the Central African Republic, but also online media, gold or diamond mines, mining companies hydrocarbons, consulting or political engineering companies, a troll factory, restaurants, hotels, a chocolate factory, an industrial butcher or car washes to which must be added front companies, no doubt used to continue to trade in the West despite international sanctions. In all, nearly 400 companies, all administered fairly centrally by a holding company, Concord Group.
The collective of anonymous hackers who got their hands on Concord Group’s accounts and exchanges transmitted them to a few European media, including Dossier Center, which published part of them on March 18 (site in Russian). Among other things, we learn that all Prigojine employees, including the servers in its restaurants, pass a lie detector test before hiring. Many employees move from one structure to another. For example, a computer scientist can alternately manage part of the St. Petersburg troll factory, the Internet Research Agency, then organize a political campaign abroad before establishing the double accounts of a Russian company. In short, these documents describe the organization chart and the accounts of a real international mafia holding company.
Insecure data
These documents, including the most compromising ones, are poorly protected. The employees of Prigojine multiply the imprudences. The fighters of the Wagner group, for example, still love being photographed or photographing themselves with arms in perfectly identifiable places where they went to fight. And they continue to share these images with their loved ones on perfectly open social networks. Other employees send documents with attached accounting lists of corrupt operations by simple unencrypted email.
Dossier Center also publishes the internal email passwords of certain employees. Incidentally, these passwords such as qwerty1488, putin1488 or zadida1488 leave little doubt as to the political orientation of Prigojine employees. The number 1488 (or 14/88) is, in fact, frequently used in white supremacist or neo-Nazi circles.
A curious detail, the accounts, including that of acts of corruption, are very precise, including for example the sums paid to such and such a politician in Russia or elsewhere. Possible explanation for this attention to accounting detail: it is the best organized way of criminal enterprises, obviously fearing internal embezzlement. Their money is always scrupulously accounted for. Getting your hands on these accounts is a real goldmine.