Employees of a shadowy Russian private military contractor are accused of illegally surveilling, intimidating, and harassing journalists in the Central African Republic—including three reporters from CNN. Bellingcat has gathered evidence that the employees were paid by a firm linked to infamous Russian billionaire and Vladimir Putin crony, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Bellingcat reports that the Prigozhin-linked Sewa Security Services made plans to track and discredit the CNN reporters before they arrived in the CAR. An internal memo was sent to a group of Russians revealing a plan to “covertly watch the reporters by using photo and video recording whenever journalists are in contact with anyone.” The CNN team was then repeatedly hassled and recorded by contractors and officials. They were held up by police at the airport suspicion of “smuggling diamonds,” and another time detained and accused of faking credentials. Later, Prigozhin’s fake-news operation sought to discredit the crew by publishing a hit piece on them, including unsubstantiated allegations about links to terrorist groups.