Blackwater

Blackwater Founder, Erik Prince

The company has undergone a series of rebranding efforts over the years as an apparent means of distancing itself from overtly toxic connotations.

Prince’s Financial Times bio discreetly identifies him as simply “a former US Navy SEAL and executive chairman of Frontier Services Group,” a Hong Kong-headquartered entity. According to its website, FSG offers “security and logistics services in frontier markets”.

In an investigation by The Intercept, Prince’s activities at FSG were reported to include endeavouring to sell weaponised crop dusters in Africa as part of “what one colleague called his ‘obsession’ with building his own private air force”. As with many of Prince’s operations, a facade of legality has often proved elusive.

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Professional Overseas Contractors

Blackwater successor Academi asked a Virginia federal judge on Thursday to toss a False Claims Act suit accusing it of falsifying firearms qualifications for U.S. Department of State guards in Afghanistan, arguing that the claims don’t hold up under the U.S. Supreme Court‘s recent Escobar decision.

In a reply in support of its motion for judgment on the pleadings, Academi pointed to the Supreme Court’s ruling this year in Universal Health Services Inc. v. Escobar, which noted that the FCA requires that violations be “material,” defined by the statute as something “capable of influencing” government payment decisions. Under this standard, former marksmen Lyle Beauchamp and Warren Shepherd have failed to allege that the government would, or likely would, have withheld payment had it known of Academi’s “supposed noncompliance,” according to the company.

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Professional Overseas Contractors

Blackwater founder and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince told Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM that according to one of his “well-placed sources” in the New York Police Department, “The NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making” in the Anthony Weiner investigation, but received “huge pushback” from the Justice Department.

Prince began by saying he had no problem believing reports that the FBI was highly confident multiple foreign agencies hacked Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

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