A Colombian mercenary recruitment network for the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) insurgent militia is using U.K. registered firms, an investigation conducted by the Guardian revealed on Friday.
RSF is a paramilitary group responsible for a litany of heinous actions and war crimes in the ongoing Sudanese civil war. Earlier this month, the U.S. imposed sanctions on a transnational network that recruited, trained, and deployed hundreds Colombians to fight for RSF.
The sanctions targeted two Colombian individuals as the leaders of the network: Alvaro Quijano and his wife Claudia Oliveros. The Guardian reported that both are described by the U.K.’s Companies House as living in Britain.
The Guardian explained that it found connections between the hired mercenaries and addresses in London. One of the addresses points to a “cramped, second-floor apartment” close to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that, according to U.K. government records, is tied to the mercenary recruitment network.
After the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been fighting the Sudanese army, seized much of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, reports surfaced accusing the group of conducting mass executions of civilians. (Murat Usubali/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“The flat in Tottenham is registered to a company called Zeuz Global, set up by two individuals named and sanctioned last week by the U.S. treasury for hiring Colombian mercenaries to fight for the RSF,” The Guardian wrote.
Both sanctioned individuals are reportedly named in Companies House records as owning initial shareholdings” of Zeuz Global, with Oliveros, who describes Britain as her “country of residence,” named as a person of “significant control” of the company.
The Guardian explained that Zeus Global is active and “abruptly” moved its operations to another location in London one day after the U.S. sanctions hit.
“Its new postcode matches One Aldwych, a five-star hotel in Covent Garden,” the newspaper detailed. “Yet the first line of Zeuz Global’s new address is, confusingly, ‘4dd Aldwych,’ which corresponds to the Waldorf Hilton hotel 100 metres away.”
File/Fighters from the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) sit on armed vehicles in the city of Nyala, in south Darfur, on May 3, 2015, as they display weapons and vehicles captured from Dafuri rebels and fighters from The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). (ASHRAF SHAZLY/AFP via Getty)
Both hotels informed The Guardian that they have no links to Zeus Global and had “no idea why the firm had used their postcodes.”
“It is of major concern that the key individuals the U.S. government claims are directing this mercenary supply have been able to set up a U.K. company operating from a flat in north London, and even to claim that they’re resident in the UK,” Mike Lewis, a researcher and former member of the U.N. panel of experts on Sudan, told The Guardian.
“Having a U.K. company like this is a passport for criminals to do business with legitimate counterparts. It’s still harder to join a gym in most cases than to set up a U.K. company,” he detailed.
“As a result, there is a long, well publicized history of U.K. shell companies being used to broker weapons and military assistance to embargoed actors in Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, North Korea – even to Isis,” he further stressed.
The Guardian said it reached out to the British Companies House, who did not respond if it had any knowledge of what Zeuz Global did nor did it confirm whether the sanctioned individuals are in fact U.K. residents. Zeuz Global’s website is labeled as “under construction” with no contact details provided.
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