Russia prints counterfeit banknotes in Africa. The Kremlin is working to destabilize a key region

Russia is accused of printing counterfeit currency on a farm on the outskirts of Benghazi. General Khalifa Haftar, who leads the Libyan National Army and opposes Tripoli, has his base there and has been supported by Russian mercenaries since at least 2018.

At the end of April The Central Bank of Libya confirmed and provided counterfeit banknotes of 50 dinars (about $10). The government estimates that several billion of them have appeared on the Libyan market, equivalent to a value of at least 10 billion US dollars. In this case, the bank decided to withdraw this category by the end of August.

This is not the first time the Kremlin has flooded Libya with counterfeit currency. Between 2016 and 2020, a branch of the Central Bank of Libya operating in the eastern part of the country, under Haftar’s control, commissioned the Russian state-owned company Goznak to print its version of the Libyan dinar, even though Haftar’s administration did not do so. Get currency collateral such as gold.

In 2019, approximately 4.5 billion counterfeit dinars were sent from Russia to the eastern coastal city of Tobruk.

Russia is trying to obtain a dominant position in Libya to control as much of the country’s territory as possibleTo be able to influence from there the neighboring North African countries and build a bridge with the south, where it already has a foothold in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. By controlling Libya, Russia can also control the migration routes from Africa to Europe that pass through it.

Libya is divided between Haftar’s government in Benghazi and the internationally recognized Libyan Government of National Accord in Tripoli, led by Abdul Hamid Dabaiba, which Haftar is trying to overthrow.