An in-depth study of the predatory trades and networks most responsible for armed violence and organized crime in the CAR.
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Over the past five years, the Central African Republic (CAR) has become a hub in which high ranking political and military figures, co-opted criminal actors and transnational organized crime groups have aligned to extract profits by consolidating control over key criminal markets.
In early 2021, the Central African Armed Forces (FACA), operating alongside Russia’s Wagner Group, launched a nationwide military campaign. While framed as a stabilization effort in a country marked by protracted armed conflict, these operations rapidly shifted beyond counterinsurgency into a broader process of territorial, political and economic consolidation. Rather than dismantling the underlying systems of violence, the operations reconfigured them.
Pro-government forces – often operating under Wagner’s operational command and supported by local proxy militias – targeted suspected combatants and civilians accused of affiliation with opposition forces. The resulting wave of violence included acts that could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The offensive also targeted the economic infrastructures sustaining rebel groups. Supply chains, trafficking corridors and informal taxation systems were disrupted, weakening the financial autonomy of rival armed groups long embedded in regional and transnational illicit markets. Yet consolidation did not bring transparency or formalization. Instead, control over key sectors became concentrated in networks aligned with the presidency, with state institutions increasingly acting as instruments for the reorganization and capture of illicit markets.
Today, instruments of war – arms, fuel and tramadol (an analgesic used by combatants for its stimulant and endurance effects) – enter the CAR from neighbouring countries, whether through licit or illicit channels, but their origins lie in global supply hubs. These commodities traverse complex transnational networks and logistics hubs that link international suppliers with local conflict actors.
This report offers an in-depth study of the criminal markets most directly linked to armed violence and organized crime in the CAR. In particular, it focuses on the intersecting illicit markets that channel strategic goods inwards and commodities outwards, providing the operational means and financial incentives for conflict.