Former Wagner Group Mercenary Arrested Illegally Crossing Rio Grande

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat 

US Border Patrol arrested a former Russian mercenary, Timur Praliev, in Texas as he waded across the Rio Grande. He was carrying two passports (one Russian and one Kazakh), $4,000 USD, 60,000 pesos, and a drone.

Timur Praliev, 31, was detained by US Border Patrol agents on January 4 near the border town of Roma, Texas, after crossing the Rio Grande into the United States and told the agents he was a citizen of Kazakhstan, U.S. federal court records show. It is against Kazakh law to have dual citizenships, as evidenced by his Russian passport and a recently received veterans ID in Russia.

“The defendant was also in possession of a drone in his backpack when he crossed into the United States,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda McColgan said on Tuesday morning, when Praliev appeared before a judge at the federal courthouse in McAllen. “And he admitted, when interviewed, to being a member of the Wagner Group.”

During Praliev’s court appearance, McColgan said the U.S. government “is concerned about [the] safety of the community when this defendant is released” because of his affiliation with Wagner, “a group associated with political violence.”

After pleading guilty to unlawful entry into the United States. McColgan, the federal prosecutor, requested a 15-day sentence, Praliev was sentenced to time served and fined $10.

Judge J. Scott Hacker questioned whether Praliev’s affiliation with the Wagner Group could actually justify the length of his sentence for illegally crossing the border. Hacker also said that, rather than being released, Praliev would remain in some kind of federal custody after serving his sentence.

“They just did a pit stop here to lay a record,” Hacker said. “So that if there’s a second conviction for illegal entry, they can seek stronger punishment.”

His current whereabouts are unclear.

Radio Free Europe located a blank profile for a user named Timur Praliev on the Russian social-networking site Vkontakte with a listed birth year, 1993, matching that listed for Praliev in U.S. court records.

Photographs from an event on December 12, 2024, show a man identified as Timur Praliev receiving his certification as a combat veteran from an organization founded by Putin last year to honor veterans of the Ukraine invasion. The post identified Timur Praliev, shown in the photograph as a “former employee” of Wagner who has ties to Iglinsky, a municipality east of the regional capital, Ufa.

Wagner has fought among Russian ranks in the Kremlin’s all-out war on Ukraine and elsewhere in the world, primarily Africa. The paramilitary group has been designated a "transnational criminal organization" by the U.S. Treasury Department.

“Wagner Group personnel have engaged in an ongoing pattern of serious criminal activity, including mass executions, rape, child abductions, and other brutalities” in Africa, according to a news release the Treasury Department published in January 2023.

Over a year ago, the leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin died in an exploding plane widely attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Months prior, Yevgeny led a abandoned coup attempt in Russia following months of losses during the invasion and war in Ukraine.

Sources Valley Central, RFRE/RL, Mark Krutov, VK Archive, IdelReal