London/Washington, DC, February 24 (Darfur24)
A new investigation by The Sentry has revealed that the leader of the Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, is closely linked to a property portfolio in the United Arab Emirates valued at up to $1.7 million.
The RSF has been engaged in conflict with the Sudan Armed Forces since April 2023, leaving more than 100,000 people dead and approximately 12 million civilians displaced across Sudan. The United States sanctioned Hemedti in January 2025 and has accused the RSF of committing genocide in the Darfur region.
According to real estate records cited in the investigation, Hemedti purchased three apartments in 2020 in Dubai near the Al Minhad military airbase. The properties were initially registered in his name before being transferred in July 2022 to Prodigious Real Estate Management Supervision Services, a UAE-registered company.
The report revealed that Prodigious is currently wholly owned by Abo Zer Abdelnabi Habiballa Ahmmed, also known as Abozer Habib, whom the United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned in 2025 over his ownership of the Capital Tap group, accused of providing financial and military support to the RSF.
“This has formed part of the financial network. The same man who owns the company that owns these properties was responsible for Capital Tap holdings, which was accused by the US in a sanctions notice of supplying weapons and money to the RSF,” Nick Donovan, an investigator at The Sentry, told Darfur24. “It’s another example of how the UAE provides its financial systems, banks and corporate legal networks to allow foreign companies to be set up in the UAE, which the RSF has used seemingly to do procurement and to buy smuggled gold.”
He said the findings constitute the organization’s third report documenting financial and operational connections between Hemedti’s network, the RSF, and the UAE, noting that multiple investigations have alleged weapons transfers, mercenary support, and gold flows linking the Gulf state and the militia, despite Emirati denials.
Investigators estimated the value of the three residential properties at just under $1 million, adding that Prodigious also owns a commercial property in Dubai valued at approximately $670,000. The portfolio reportedly generated at least $80,000 annually in rental income between 2023 and 2025.
The properties were identified through leaked Dubai real estate records obtained by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies and verified with support from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
The Sentry called on authorities in the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom to consider sanctions against Prodigious and its owner, and urged financial institutions and real estate professionals to conduct enhanced due diligence on transactions potentially linked to Dagalo’s network.
The organization also recommended that law enforcement agencies investigate real estate purchases associated with Dagalo’s family and related entities, while urging the Financial Action Task Force to prioritize scrutiny of the UAE real estate sector during its upcoming 2026 mutual evaluation of anti-money laundering enforcement.
“We are appealing to people in the UAE or the Sudanese diaspora who know about the property portfolio of the Dagalo family or the RSF to come forward and contact us. We’ve got encrypted and secure methods of contacting us on our website, thesentry.org, because we feel that this small property portfolio is just a tip of the iceberg and that there are other luxury properties held by Hemedti and family in Dubai and elsewhere,” Donovan appealed.