Latest news with #ErikPrince
Fox News
2 days ago
- General
- Fox News
Blackwater founder Erik Prince teams with Haitian government to fight gang violence
Private military contractor Erik Prince, the former Navy SEAL and founder of Blackwater Worldwide, is working with the Haitian government to fight the gangs terrorizing the Caribbean nation. Prince's role will be to advise the Haitian government and its undermanned and underequipped police force on how to take on the street gangs amid record levels of violence in which thousands of people have been killed, injured and abducted. "That goes beyond just the security question and extends to restoring essential government services, but obviously everything is founded on restoring security," the source said. Armed groups have taken over prisons, hospitals and swaths of territory, forcing people to flee their homes. In April 2024, thousands fled the capital of Port-au-Prince for rural regions because of escalating gang violence there. The Pentagon deferred questions by Fox News Digital to the Haitian government, which has also been contacted by Fox News Digital. Fox News Digital also reached out to Prince. While Blackwater no longer exists, Prince owns various private military entities, the New York Times reported. The State Department told Fox News Digital that the United States is not involved in any private security contract negotiations regarding Haiti and that Prince is not being paid by the U.S. government. Prince has been speaking with the Haitian government on how to fight well-armed gangs like Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif, which have been designated by the State Department as foreign terrorist organizations, and restore security and stability, the source said. A special task force to take on the gangs has been set up. That group will lead the effort with support from international partners and experts. So far, the task force has used drones. "While it may be true that no leaders have been taken out yet, a significant number of senior gang members have been killed or wounded," the source said. "For the first time, the police are starting to put real pressure on them, and their capabilities are growing. So we hope to see an improvement of the situation over the coming months." The key is to do it in a way that is precise and mitigates risks to civilians, the source added. Security experts told the New York Times that Prince has also been scouting to hire Haitian-American military veterans to send to Port-au-Prince. He is expected to send up to 150 mercenaries to Haiti over the summer and recently shipped a large cache of weapons to the country, two experts told the newspaper. Military contractors in Haiti have a checkered history. In 2021, Colombian mercenaries hired by an American security firm were accused of taking part in the assassination of former President Jovenel Moïse. Rod Joseph, a Haitian-American Army veteran who owns a Florida-based security officer training company, told the New York Times that he had been in talks with Prince to help supply personnel for his contract since late last year.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
A Desperate Haiti Turns to Erik Prince, Trump Ally, in Fight Against Gangs
Erik Prince, a private military contractor and prominent supporter of President Trump, is working with Haiti's government to conduct lethal operations against gangs that are terrorizing the nation and threatening to take over its capital. Mr. Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide, signed a contract to take on the criminal groups that have been killing civilians and seizing control of vast areas of territory, according to senior Haitian and American government officials and several other security experts familiar with Mr. Prince's work in Haiti. Haiti's government has hired American contractors, including Mr. Prince, in recent months to work on a secret task force to deploy drones meant to kill gang members, security experts said. Mr. Prince's team has been operating the drones since March, but the authorities have yet to announce the death or capture of a single high-value target. Security experts said Mr. Prince has also been scouting Haitian American military veterans to hire to send to Port-au-Prince and is expected to send up to 150 mercenaries to Haiti over the summer. He recently shipped a large cache of weapons to the country, two experts said. The Haitian government is awaiting the arrival of arms shipments and more personnel to step up its fight against the gangs. American officials said they were aware of Mr. Prince's work with Haiti's government. But the full terms of the Haitian government's arrangement with Mr. Prince, including how much it is paying him, are unknown. This article is based on interviews with a dozen people who follow Haiti closely. All but one spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive security matters publicly. The State Department, which has provided millions of dollars in funding to equip and train Haiti's National Police, said it is not paying Mr. Prince or his company for any work in Haiti. Mr. Prince declined to comment for this article. Blackwater no longer exists, but Mr. Prince owns other private military entities. The involvement of civilian contractors like Mr. Prince, a Trump donor who has a long and checkered history in the private security industry, marks a pivotal moment in Haiti. Its crisis has deepened since its last president was assassinated in 2021, and the government now appears willing to take desperate measures to secure control. Armed groups escalated the violence last year by uniting and taking over prisons, burning down police stations and attacking hospitals. About 1 million people have been forced to flee their homes and hundreds of thousands are living in shelters. Gangs have captured so much territory in recent months that U.N. officials have warned that the capital is in danger of falling under complete criminal control. The situation is dire enough that officials and civilians alike say they are eager for any overseas help, particularly after a $600 million international police mission started by the Biden administration and largely staffed by Kenyan police officers failed to receive adequate international personnel and money. With Haiti's undermanned and underequipped police force struggling to contain the gangs, the government is turning to private military contractors equipped with high-powered weapons, helicopters and sophisticated surveillance and attack drones to take on the well-armed gangs. At least one other American security company is working in Haiti, though details of its role are secret. Since drone attacks targeting gangs started in March, they have killed more than 200 people, according to Pierre Esperance, who runs a leading human rights organization in Port-au-Prince. After the U.S. occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq ended, security firms like those owned by Mr. Prince started seeing big streams of revenues dry up. Private military contractors are looking for new opportunities, and they see possibilities in Latin America. Before presidential elections in Ecuador this year, Mr. Prince toured the country with local police and promised to help security forces. The country has faced a wave of violence unleashed by gangs. Ecuadorean officials denied that they had signed any security deal with Mr. Prince. A person close to Mr. Prince said he hopes to expand the scope of his work in Haiti to include help with customs, transport, revenue collection and other government services that need to be restored for the country to stabilize. Rampant government corruption is a key reason Haiti's finances are in shambles. The Haitian prime minister's office and a presidential council, which was formed to run the country until presidential elections can be held, did not respond to several requests for comment. Mr. Prince, whose sister Betsy DeVos was Secretary of Education during Mr. Trump's first term, donated more than $250,000 to help elect Mr. Trump in 2016, according to campaign finance records. He was often cited as an informal 'adviser' to Mr. Trump's first transition to office, a description he denied. Days before Mr. Trump took office in 2017, the United Arab Emirates organized a meeting between Mr. Prince and a Russian close to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as part of an effort to set up a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and the incoming president, a meeting that later came under scrutiny. The House Intelligence Committee made a criminal referral to the Justice Department about Mr. Prince, saying he lied about the circumstances of the meeting, but no charges were ever filed. Mr. Prince has a decades-long history of military interventions overseas, some of which ended badly. Blackwater faced legal problems over its work for the U.S. military in places like Iraq, including an episode in 2007 in which its employees killed 17 civilians in Baghdad. (President Trump pardoned four Blackwater guards in 2020.) In 2011, Mr. Prince helped recruit and train an army of Colombian mercenaries for the United Arab Emirates to use in conflicts around the Middle East. In 2017, he proposed a plan to use contractors to take over Afghanistan. In 2020, The New York Times revealed that he had recruited former spies to help conservative activists infiltrate liberal groups in the United States. A year later, the United Nations accused him of violating an arms embargo in Libya, which he denied. 'My name has become click bait for people who like to weave conspiracy theories together,' Mr. Prince said in a 2021 interview with The Times. 'And if they throw my name in, it always attracts attention. And it's pretty damn sickening.' Haiti's experience with private military contractors goes back decades. When U.S. forces returned former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in 1994 after he was ousted in a bloody military coup, he was accompanied by a private security team from the San Francisco-based Steele Foundation. In recent years, military contractors in Haiti have had a more tainted record. Colombian mercenaries hired by an American security firm were accused of taking part in the 2021 assassination of the last elected president, Jovenel Moïse. Rod Joseph, a Haitian American U.S. Army veteran who owns a Florida-based security officer training company, said he had been in talks with Mr. Prince to help supply personnel for his contract since late last year. Mr. Joseph, who trained Haitian police on the use of surveillance drones, said Mr. Prince gave him the impression that his plans were under the auspices of the U.S. government but then shifted to be directly under the purview of the Haitian government. He said Mr. Prince told him that he planned to send private soldiers from El Salvador to Haiti along with three helicopters to engage in attacks against the gangs. Mr. Joseph said he was uncomfortable with the idea of contractors working directly with the Haitian government, without any American oversight. 'We should be very worried, because if he's from the U.S. government, at least he can have the semblance of having to answer to Congress,' he said. 'If it's him, his contract, he doesn't owe anybody an explanation.' 'It's just another payday,' he added. Mr. Prince texted him a few days ago, Mr. Joseph said, seeking a list of Haitian American veterans to send to Haiti, but he declined to provide names unless Mr. Prince could provide more precise details of their mission and would allow Mr. Joseph to lead them. U.S. military contractors doing defense work overseas are required to obtain a license from the State Department, but those licenses are not public record. Mr. Prince has been trying to expand his portfolio and has traveled overseas in search of new business, said Sean McFate, a professor at the National Defense University and author of 'The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order.' Mr. Prince is viewed skeptically by other members of the private military industry, Mr. McFate said, because of his showy nature and the negative publicity he generates for a security industry that prides itself on a 'sense of professionalism.' 'It's always worth noting where Prince is going, because it's sort of a barometer of where he thinks Trump world might end up, and he wants to make a buck from it,' Mr. McFate said. But experts stress that Haitians are desperate for solutions — regardless of where they come from. 'The doors are open. All possibilities must be on the table,' Haiti's Minister of Economy and Finance, Alfred Métellus, told Le Nouvelliste, a Haitian newspaper, last month. 'We are looking for all Haitians, all foreigners who have expertise in this field and who want to support us, want to support the police and the army to unblock the situation.' Mr. Joseph said he worried that outsourcing the work of fighting gangs to private military contractors would not do anything to improve the skills of the Haitian police and military. 'When you do it this way, it's trouble,' he said. 'Every time you parachute knowledge in and parachute out, the locals will always be in need of that knowledge. If you don't have knowledge of security, you will just have a bunch of dead people.'
Telegraph
15-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Death of the last maverick mercenary may herald something far worse for Africa
Simon Mann, the Old Etonian soldier of fortune who died last week at the age of 72, should have been the coda to the inglorious symphony of the white mercenary in Africa. So madcap, so incongruous was the 'Wonga Coup' he attempted to launch in Equatorial Guinea in 2004 that it seemed to belong to another era. Africa had moved on, old hands declared. Mann, poor fellow, had failed to read the winds of change. Yet far from being a holdover from the past, Mann has proved to be a harbinger of the present. Analysts reckon there are now more foreign mercenaries operating in Africa than ever before. The Russians, in the form of the Wagner Group, were the vanguard of the second wave, arriving in 2017. But others are following in ever greater numbers, Turks, Chinese and Romanians among them – perhaps soon even Americans, with Erik Prince, the founder of the infamous Blackwater mercenary group, reportedly offering Congo his services as part of a putative minerals deal with Donald Trump. Some are shadowy outfits, manned by ruthless racketeers, deployed to advance their states' geopolitical ambitions. Others lay claim to greater respectability. Blanching at the term 'mercenary', they call themselves private military contractors. Many play a vital role in protecting weak governments by training inexperienced national armies, guarding key installations and taking the lead in counterinsurgency operations against Islamist militants. Whatever their role, few of the new generation have the panache of the mercenaries of yesteryear who culminated with Mann. Their era began in the early Sixties, in the years when newly independent African states were struggling to find their feet. From Nigeria and Congo to Angola and the island states of the Indian Ocean, they were on hand – often with the blessing of Whitehall and the Quai d'Orsay – to support secessionist movements, prop up feeble governments or mount the occasional coup. Of Mann's forebears the two that most stand out were 'Mad Mike' Hoare, a stiff-lipped Anglo-Irishman and one-time accountant, and Bob Denard, the flamboyant Frenchman with whom he had an unspoken rivalry. Hoare, who bore a passing resemblance to Montgomery, led his motley fighters, the fabled Wild Geese, in defeating Congo's China-backed Simba rebels, who numbered Che Guevara in their ranks, and shoring up the breakaway province of Katanga. He and his 300 men recaptured Stanleyville, later to be renamed Kisangani, from the Simbas, freed 2,000 European hostages, most of them nuns and priests – and then dynamited the vaults of every bank in the city before drinking its taverns dry. It was a tale of derring-do worthy of Empire and made Hoare, who made his men attend church every Sunday, a hero on Fleet Street. Among those who lapped up his antics back home was the young Simon Mann, sitting in the back of a classroom plotting imaginary coups in his atlas. Hoare did much to romanticise the reputation of the white mercenary in black Africa. Yet the image belied a darker reality, too. Some of Hoare's men were German ex-Nazis who still wore the Iron Cross. Most had old-fashioned views on race. Hoare and his Wild Geese had no compunction about shedding blood, decorating their trucks with the heads of Simba warriors they had slain. Hoare, who died in 2020 at the age of 100, may have been a character but, if anything, Denard was even more swashbuckling. He had been in Katanga at the same time as Hoare, leading a unit called 'les affreux' ('the terrible ones'). He later changed sides, was shot in the head by a North Korean soldier, recovered under the care of a nurse and then married her. He reportedly had six other wives, some of them at the same time. After a failed attempt to seize power in Yemen and Benin, he turned his attention in 1977 to Comoros, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, launching the first of four coup attempts he made there. Leading just 50 men, equipped with sawn-off shotguns and two dozen cases of Dom Perignon champagne, he toppled the socialist president, who was shot dead 'while attempting to escape'. Denard effectively ran the country for the next decade as head of the presidential guard, a position he lost after the puppet president he installed was also shot mysteriously. Denard was acquitted of the killing but the mounting presidential body count did him no favours. Whatever their flaws, Mann grew up idolising such men. Like them, he would go on to find triumph and disaster on the world's poorest continent. He helped set up Executive Outcomes, which made a fortune protecting Angola's oil fields from rebel attack in the 1990s and was later involved with an offshoot, Sandline International, seeing action in diamond-rich Sierra Leone's civil war. But in an uncanny echo of his two heroes, Mann's mercenary career ended with a ludicrously injudicious coup attempt. In 1981, Hoare attempted to seize power in the Seychelles, flying economy into Victoria, the capital, with a group of mercenaries disguised as members of a beer appreciation society, The Ancient Order of Froth Blowers. Taking their cover too seriously, most of the men had overindulged on the flight. After starting a brawl in the arrivals hall, a customs officer found an AK-47 in one of their bags, prompting a gun battle that ended when Hoare and his men hijacked an Air India flight to get back to South Africa. The mercenaries drank all the champagne on board and were promptly arrested on arrival. In 1995, Denard's final attempt to take back power in Comoros similarly failed after he and his men drifted onto a beach in inflatable dinghies one moonless night only to find the French army waiting for them. Denard, who died in 2007, spent 10 months in a French prison, Mad Mike Hoare 33 months in a South African one. Mann, whose father and grandfather both captained England at cricket, did more time than both of them combined after a fantastical plot, allegedly concocted in 2004 in the hallowed surroundings of White's, the club in St James's, to overthrow Obiang Nguema, then, as now, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea. The conspiracy was ludicrously complicated, with Mann buying an old Boeing 727 to fly his mercenaries from South Africa to Equatorial Guinea, making a detour in Harare to pick up weapons. The plan was then to fly across the continent to meet an advance party already in Equatorial Guinea, storm the presidential palace and then install a little-known exile as the country's new leader. The problem for Mann was that the entire plot had been blown wide open even before his crew left South Africa. Mann and his team were promptly arrested on arrival in Zimbabwe, where he would serve four years before being transferred to complete a further 13 months in Equatorial Guinea's notorious Black Beach prison. Mann's outfit had neither the intelligence nor the infrastructure in place to succeed, notes Piers Pigou, a Johannesburg-based analyst who has long studied mercenary operations in Africa. 'It was a bit of a Heath Robinson operation,' he said. 'I think everyone was surprised that they ran such a leaky ship, which enabled the authorities in South Africa and therefore Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea to be prepared. I still look at that coup and wonder how on earth they think they could have succeeded.' Mann's failed coup seemed like a final hurrah for white mercenaries in Africa. It was certainly an anomaly. By the turn of the millennium, African economies were growing, democracy was on the rise and, though many countries remained chronically weak, conflict was on the wane. New breed of mercenary Alas, it was not to last. By 2017 a new breed of mercenary had begun to appear in Africa in the form of the Wagner Group, which offered armed services in exchange for access to natural resources – deals remarkably similar to the one Mann and his co-conspirators hoped to strike in Equatorial Guinea. Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner's founder, may have lacked the class of the those who ploughed the same furrows in earlier decades: he did not swill champagne like Denard or recite Shakespeare like Hoare. He did not even go to Eton. But, at least in some cases, Wagner was crudely effective. Hired by Faustin-Archange Touadera, the president of the Central African Republic, Wagner beat back the country's Islamist rebels, though it imposed a huge cost. To this day, the CAR remains virtually a Wagner colony, Mr Pigou says. Wagner was nominally dissolved following Prigozhin's death in a mysterious plane crash in 2023 weeks after he marched on Moscow in an attempted rebellion of his own. The outfit, now controlled more directly by the Russian state, continues to prop up half a dozen African governments, most of them military dictatorships, and has faced numerous accusations of perpetrating massacres and other abuses. Other state-linked mercenary outfits of varying quality have also appeared on the scene. Chinese private military groups operate in more than a dozen African states, mainly to protect China-run oil facilities, mines and infrastructure projects, guard logistics routes and protect Chinese nationals against the rising threat of kidnapping. Chinese mercenaries may be authorised by Beijing to carry and use weapons in Africa but, unlike Wagner, they do not directly prop up authoritarian regimes or intervene in internal politics. Other foreign groups are more overtly engaged in fighting. Last year, Sadat, a Turkish private military force with ties to the country's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reportedly suffered casualties while engaging with Islamist insurgents in Niger. Sadat, which insists that it does not provide 'paramilitary or mercenary services', says its focus is on strategic consultancy, military training and protecting important economic facilities. Not all mercenary groups deliver on the bold promises they make. In 2022 the Congolese government hired 1,000 predominantly Romanian mercenaries, who became known as 'the Romeos', to defend eastern cities against the country's M23 rebels. But when the rebels advanced on Goma and Bukavu, the two biggest cities in the east, in January, the Romeos cut and ran, abandoning their weapons and vehicles as they fled for the safety of the UN peacekeeping base. Both cities swiftly fell and the mercenaries eventually surrendered to M23. Not all mercenaries are shadowy outfits Not all mercenaries are as rapacious as Wagner or as hapless as the Romeos. Indeed, says Mr Pigou, some do a lot more good than harm. In 2019, Filipe Nyusi, then the president of Mozambique, originally looked to Wagner to fight an Islamist insurgency in the north. After the jihadists humiliated the Russians, killing scores, Mr Nyusi turned instead to a rather different beast, the Dyck Advisory Group (DAG), led by Lionel Dyck, a colonel who served in the Rhodesian army. Dyck, who died last year, broadly fits the definition of a mercenary but he always insisted that his group followed the highest international standards governing private military contractors. As a result, it helped prevent countries like Mozambique, with weak indigenous armies, from slipping into chaos and bloodshed. By training Mozambique's police, it also strengthened the country's ability to defend itself in the future, he argued. While DAG has faced criticism in the past, including of carrying out attacks on civilians which it denies, it is a reminder, cautions Mr Pigou, that blanket, knee-jerk condemnation of mercenary activities in Africa is counterproductive. 'There's a cookie-cutter demonisation of the bloodthirsty white mercenary,' he said. 'There are elements of truth in this, but these narratives are predicated on cartoon characters that don't reflect the realities on the ground. 'They miss the kind of sober cost-benefit analysis of what they guys are able to achieve.'
Business Insider
13-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
French ex-soldiers eye Africa return as US billionaire seeks security team for DRC mines
French ex-soldiers may be returning to Africa as part of a private security team put together by US billionaire, Eric Prince to protect mining operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). French ex-soldiers are being considered for recruitment to secure mining operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This initiative is connected to the firm of Erik Prince, indicating a trend towards private security in resource-rich African regions. The DRC's mineral wealth and ongoing instability underlie the necessity for specialized security measures. The recruitment of French ex-soldiers is linked to a security contract with U.S. billionaire Erik Prince's firm, indicating a growing trend of private military contractors securing high-risk, resource-rich areas across Africa. According to a report by Africa Intelligence, a ' mysterious' recruiter has been reaching out to former French servicemen, particularly from the elite French Foreign Legion, to offer them a role in the DRC. The move follows recent peace talks between the DRC and Rwanda, which were part of broader efforts initiated by the United States to address the ongoing regional conflict. In exchange for stability in the region, the U.S. has gained access to the DRC's mineral wealth, which has long been plagued by issues such as smuggling and corruption. In April 2025, Reuters exclusively reported that Erik Prince had secured a deal to assist the DRC in securing and taxing its vast mineral reserves. With the DRC's immense mineral wealth and its ongoing instability, securing mining operations has become increasingly vital. This has led to the involvement of experienced personnel from around the globe, with French ex-soldiers becoming key players in this growing security landscape. Details of the security deal Erik Prince, founder of the infamous private military company Blackwater, has a contentious history in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where his firm has been involved in securing mining logistics since 2015. According to The Africa Report, Prince initiated talks with the DRC government in early January regarding mineral security, prior to the M23 rebels' major offensive that led to the capture of Goma and Bukavu. In April 2025, an agreement was reached to help secure and tax the country's vast mineral wealth, particularly in the copper-rich Katanga province. The deal aims to boost state revenue from mining, which is plagued by smuggling and corruption. The use of ex-French soldiers Erik Prince's preference for hiring ex-French soldiers likely stems from their deep experience in high-risk environments, especially in African conflict zones. With their extensive knowledge of Africa's political and security dynamics, these soldiers bring valuable skills to stabilize volatile regions. However, this reliance on French military personnel faces rejection in many African countries, particularly in French-speaking nations, where such interventions are often seen as neocolonial or undermining local sovereignty. This growing pushback is reflected in the increasing replacement of French forces by Russian military presence. The shift is particularly evident in countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, and others led by military juntas.
Scoop
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
What Are Erik Prince's Plans For The Second Trump Administration?
The deportation case of Maryland resident and Salvadoran national Kilmar Abrego Garcia has drawn major attention to the practice of sending migrants to El Salvador for detention. One man looking to capitalize on this trend is Erik Prince, the former CEO of the private military company (PMC) Blackwater. In a plan that has caught the interest of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and President Donald Trump, Prince has proposeddeporting undocumented migrants through his new venture, 2USV, on a fleet of private aircraft. A 'Treaty of Cession' would designate part of El Salvador's Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) prison as U.S. territory, and the transfer of 'a prisoner to such a facility would not be an Extradition nor a Deportation,' according to a Politico article. The prison complex, which Prince previously toured in August 2024, would then be leased back to El Salvador to run, and the U.S. prison standards would not apply to it, similar to Guantanamo Bay. If the U.S. had a counterpart to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late architect of Russia's modern PMC network, it is Erik Prince. Relentlessly entrepreneurial, Prince became a prominent player in Washington during the Bush and first Trump administrations, though he was mostly sidelined during the Obama and Biden years. He now returns to Washington's inner circle seeking to increase his role again, having visited the White House shortly after Trump's inauguration in January 2025 and serving as a character witnessduring the confirmation hearing for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. As a hugely influential figure across the American PMC ecosystem, Prince's Salvadoran pitch is one of many ambitious and controversial ventures he's pursued. But his track record is uneven, with many proposals never materializing, and those that do often bring intense scrutiny. Prince and Previous Administrations Erik Prince first rose to prominence after founding the PMC Blackwater in 1997, initially offering training services to police and military personnel. After 9/11, Blackwater became a central playerin the war on terror, expanding into armed security, logistics, transportation, and working with CIA assassination teams. The company's rise was accompanied by controversy. In 2006, its contractors allegedly disarmed and held U.S. soldiers at gunpoint in Iraq. A year later, Blackwater guards killed 17 civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square, causing global outrage. Prince and his allies argued the company was scapegoated for a chaotic war effort, while WikiLeaks files showed similar incidents with U.S. military members. Following these incidents involving the company, its reputation was severely damaged. Iraq revoked its license in 2007, and though the Obama administration briefly continued working with Prince, mounting scrutiny forced the severing of ties. Erik Prince nonetheless remained active abroad. After selling Blackwater in 2010, he moved to Abu Dhabi, where he helped create a presidential guard for the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) royal family. Though later marginalized amid media concerns and questions over funds, Prince remained an influential adviser in expanding the UAE's PMC operations in Yemen, Somalia, and Libya. In 2014, Prince also launched the Hong Kong-based Frontier Services Group (FSG), evolving from a Bermuda-registered shell. The company focused on logistics and security support for Chinese firms involved in projects across Africa under China's Belt and Road Initiative. He emerged from the American political wilderness in 2015 as a vocal supporter and donor to Trump's election campaign. His sister, Betsy DeVos, was later appointed secretary of education. In 2017, Prince reportedly participated in a secretive meeting in the Seychelles to set up a backchannel between U.S. and Russian officials. He continued pitching unconventional proposals throughout Trump's term, with Trump pardoning four Blackwater contractors convicted in the 2007 massacre in 2020. The incoming Biden administration subsequently distanced itself from Prince and his network. Latin America Now, with a more assertive Trump administration back in office, Erik Prince is aligning new business proposals with U.S. policy goals and those of receptive foreign leaders. In March 2025, he traveled to Ecuador and announced plans to combat organized crime and illegal fishing in coordination with President Daniel Noboa, who was reelected in April, showing openness of the country to amend its constitution and permit the deployment of U.S. troops to fight criminal groups. Prince's approach taps into a consistent Washington view that stabilizing Latin America will reduce migration pressure on the U.S. border. Trump appears open to this, but the legacy of American intervention in the region from the Monroe Doctrine onward has often created more instability than it resolved. Whether private contractors can deliver real stability or simply serve short-term strategic aims remains unclear. Trump and Prince also see PMCs as useful tools in destabilizing governments deemed hostile to U.S. interests. In 2019, Prince pitched a plan to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro using mercenaries. The following year, Operation Gideon—a failed coup attempt partly involving Florida-based PMC Silvercorp USA—led to the capture of several former U.S. servicemen by Venezuelan forces, though most fighters were Latin American, reflecting common American PMC sourcing practices. Though the operation failed, another PMC-based operation proved more consequential soon after. In 2021, mostly Colombian mercenaries hired by the Florida-based company CTU were implicated in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in the capital Port-au-Prince. The operation required minimal military resources but had a major political fallout, triggering a power vacuum and rising gang violence. Prince was not tied to Operation Gideon or the 2021 Haiti operation, but in 2024, following Venezuela's disputed July election, Prince began supporting a new opposition movement called Ya Casi Venezuela. While its goals remain opaque, Prince's involvement suggests plans are once again underway in Caracas. Further Abroad Prince is also looking further abroad, building on years of groundwork. In 2023, he reportedly sought to deploy 2,500 Latin American personnel to the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to halt rebel advances and protect mining areas, part of a UAE-DRC deal flagged in a UN report on sanctions violations. In 2025, he struck a deal with the DRC government for 'tightening tax collection and cracking down on cross-border smuggling—particularly in the copper and cobalt-rich south,' according to an April article in the African Report. These actions will help secure and regulate the region's mineral sector and align with U.S. efforts to counter Chinese influence in the global minerals race—a far cry from Prince's past dealings with Chinese entities in Africa. The situation remains volatile, with Russian PMCs long embedded in the DRC and Romanian mercenaries recently caught in the fighting. PMCs have accrued significant power in Africa in recent years, with Russian mercenaries helping push the French military out of the Sahel in 2022-2023. With Trump back in office, Prince is positioning his approach as a quieter alternative to hard power, with the DRC as a possible testing ground. His move coincides with the Trump administration's efforts to broker peace between the DRC and Rwanda to stabilize the region for mineral extraction. Prince has also floated a proposal to take on Houthi rebels in Yemen, currently targeted by British, American, and Israeli strikes. He has also been involved in Israel since shortly after the October 7, 2023, attacks. One shelved proposal called for flooding Hamas tunnels in Gaza. While never executed, the initiative has inspired proposals in Gaza from other entities, including the February 2025 announcement that U.S. PMC UG Solutions and another firm will manage the strip's Netzarim Corridor, 'a checkpoint separating northern and southern Gaza,' according to Popular Other plans of his have also failed to advance. Trump's first administration rejected Prince's plans to replace U.S. forces in Afghanistan with contractors and arm Libyan General Khalifa Haftaras a counter to Russia, which would also help regulate migration to Europe. The latter plan later triggered an FBI investigation under Biden, and future proposals may be similarly rejected by Trump. Yet Prince also has domestic ambitions. During Trump's first term, he partnered with Project Veritas, an organization known for using undercover tactics and hidden cameras to target media and left-wing institutions. Prince provided espionage training and allowed the group to use his Wyoming ranch, an operation that could easily be revived or imitated. The deportation plan tied to El Salvador's CECOT prison, mentioned earlier, also has domestic implications. Prince's company, 2USV, tied it to a $25 billion business plan to deploy private agents to arrest and remove 12 million undocumented migrants from the U.S. While not publicly endorsed by the White House, the plan closely mirrors Trump's stated priorities and could divert public attention away from ICE's efforts. Regardless of what is adopted by the White House, the momentum behind PMCs, private intelligence networks, and related actors shows no signs of slowing. Prince's array of plans reflects his willingness to test the boundaries of what these companies can do at home and abroad. Their ambiguous legal status makes them ideal for politically sensitive missions where plausible deniability is important. Once peripheral, these private entities are now increasingly relevant to regime change, mineral security, and border enforcement. Prince, perhaps more than anyone, is leading the charge, though his reputation may bring more attention to his activities than either he or his clients want. Author Bio: John P. Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, D.C., and a world affairs correspondent for the Independent Media Institute. He is a contributor to several foreign affairs publications, and his book, Budget Superpower: How Russia Challenges the West With an Economy Smaller Than Texas', was published in December 2022.
