Who is Eric Prince? Private Military Company Blackwater

The first written mention of such a phenomenon as mercenarism, refers to the IV century BC. E. It is obvious that people who take part in armed conflicts on one or another side only for the sake of profit, have been before. Despite all the humanistic achievements of mankind, there are still today. Moreover, at the moment there are several military companies engaged in the supply of mercenaries, the most famous of which is Blackwater (currently Academi) - created the "sea cat" Eric Prince.

A family

Eric Prince was born June 6, 1969 in a small town in the Netherlands in Michigan. His father Edgar and his wife Elsa already had three children at the time. The family of Princes for several generations preached the right-Christian views.

The father of the future king of mercenaries began as a seller, receiving only 40 cents an hour. Thanks to perseverance and diligence, he accumulated the necessary amount and in 1965 founded the company for the production of machine tools for casting car bodies Prince Machine Corporation. Soon the businessman adjusted the production of other spare parts. This allowed Edgar Prince to expand his business and bring the profit to the six-digit figures in the shortest possible time. However, this was not the limit, and soon the family already had a network of companies and real estate worth a total of $ 1 billion.

In the early 1970s, Edgar Prince's company patented a sun visor and sold 5,000 copies of General Motors. In the 90s, the production of such products at the company's enterprises was 20,000. in a day. In addition, in the 1980s, as a result of the marriage of Sister Eric with the offspring of one of the most influential "Republican" clans of the United States, the Prince family acquired the necessary connections on the country's political Olympus.

Childhood

Thus, Eric Prince grew up in a very wealthy family. After all, every fourth adult of his native Holland worked for his father. However, in his family were strong Puritan traditions, prescribing to keep children in severity. His father loved to travel with his family. Together they traveled all over the world. The teenager Eric Prince visited Germany, where he visited the Dachau concentration camp, as well as West Berlin. According to his mother, these trips made a great impression on the young man, leaving an indelible mark on his soul.

Study

As a child, Eric Prince (date of birth: June 6, 1969) attended a Christian school. After graduating, he entered the US Naval Academy and attended it for 3 semesters. However, soon the strict discipline and order reigning in this university, he was fed up, and in 1992 the young man transferred to the Economics Department of Hillsdale College. In parallel with the studies, Eric Prince, whose photo is presented in the article, served as a volunteer firefighter and diver for the sheriff of Hillsdale County.

Carier start

In 1990, Prince became an intern at the White House under George W. Bush. However, he soon began working with a Senator from California, Congressman Den Rohrabacher, former speechwriter of President Ronald Reagan. The new patron praised Eric, calling him "a bright young man." At the age of 21, Prince voluntarily went to search for mass graves of opponents of the regime of Daniel Ortega, and later made a report that he managed to find them.

Service in the United States Navy

After college, Eric Prince, whose business is currently involved in ensuring the security of logistics of the PRC, graduated from the Candidate School of Officers and in 1992 was appointed officer of the US Navy.

He became a "sea seal" and as part of the 8th detachment participated in military missions in Haiti, the Middle East and the Balkans. During the period of service as part of the US Special Forces, Eric Prince met many dashing warriors, who later became his faithful assistants and associates. In his autobiography, he argues that the need for private training centers for the preparation of special operations he realized during the Yugoslav wars of the early 1990s.

Career in business

In 1995, the father of Eric Prince died. Working for sixteen hours a day, seven days a week, and for two decades, did not have the best effect on the health of a workaholic businessman, and his heart could not stand it. Eric stepped down and took control of the family business. He worked tirelessly, but soon his mother decided to sell Prince Machine Corporation.

The new owner of the company was Johnson Controls, which paid Mrs. Prince $ 1.35 billion in cash. Since many employees have been working at the firm of Erik's father since the foundation, there was a clause in the purchase / sale contract that the old personnel should not be dismissed within the next 10 years. However, as often happens, the new owner immediately produced a reduction of 2/3 of employees and changed the name of the company, although he promised to keep it unchanged. Part of the money earned for the sale of the family business, went to Eric, who decided to invest in an unusual business.

Establishment of Blackwater Worldwide

Eric Prince, whose biography in his early youth you already know, in 1997 moved to Virginia Beach. There he founded a school for the preparation of special operations Blackwater Worldwide. For this purpose, Prince had previously purchased 6,000 acres of land in the Great Deep Wetland area of North Carolina. I must say that the authorities of the town and its residents at first very negatively reacted to the idea of creating a militarized range near their homes. However, Prince managed to convince them that the new training center will serve the prosperity of Virginia Beach.

By the end of 1998, Blackwater Worldwide had several conference rooms, more than a dozen theoretical classrooms, a shop, comfortable recreational facilities, a dining room, an arsenal with a separate room for cleaning weapons, and rooms with satellite TV for VIP lodgers who decided Pass the "course of the young fighter." In the same year, the company organized and held on its territory a shooting competition at Shoot-out at BW. Representatives of law enforcement agencies from American military units took part in it.

Subsequently, Prince repeatedly noted that he created the company Blackwater Worldwide because of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. According to him, what happened there, he really worried, and he realized that he could not sit back and preach. Initially, Prince acted only as the "purse" of the new company, and El Clark, who before the move to Virginia Beach for 11 years, served as an instructor in the use of firearms in the departments of "fur seals".

Activities of the company "Blackwater"

The creation of the Prince's company coincided with the US Department of Defense spending reduction company, initiated by Dick Cheney. According to his plan, the entire army logistics and functions, not related to the direct conduct of military operations, were to be transferred to private firms. First of all, the military department got rid of training bases, among which were obsolete, including those built during the Second World War.

Thus, the emergence of a private training center equipped with the most modern equipment was timely, and the services of Blackwater immediately became in demand. From 1997 to 2010, Prince received $ 2 billion in government security contracts. At the same time, more than 1.6 billion were unclassified federal contracts, information about which is secret and not subject to disclosure.

In addition, from 2001 to 2010, the Central Intelligence Agency transferred $ 600 million to Blackwater. In the first decade after its founding, Prince's offspring became the largest of the three private security firms of the United States Department of State, providing American embassies and military bases stationed abroad, with 987 guards.

For many years, the training base of Prince was training the police states of Virginia and North Carolina. There even came representatives of the department for the protection of law and order from neighboring Canada. In addition, Blackwater armed soldiers were seen on the streets of New Orleans during the floods. They carried out patrols to prevent looting and prevent other crimes against the lives and property of citizens in distress.

Mission in Iraq

The company "Blackwater" lit up in the hottest places on the planet. In particular, its units appeared in Iraq almost immediately after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Since 2003, the employees of the company have been formally charged with the protection of the head of the civil administration of Iraq, Paul Bremer. At the same time, the number of Blackwater soldiers who participated in the war in Iraq amounted to more than 10,000 people.

According to the US media, the loss of Prince's mercenaries in Iraq amounted to about 780 people. It is interesting that this figure was not taken into account in the official statistics of military losses. This, of course, was in the hands of the administration of President Bush, who was already criticized for the large number of deaths in Iraq. In addition, the crimes of mercenaries Blackwater did not fall into the category of the military.

Criticism of the activities of the company "Blackwater"

Although Eric Prince, whose private military company was one of the first in his field, always said that he was close to the idea of humanism, but Blackwater was repeatedly at the center of high-profile scandals. One of these events was the massacre in Nisur Square in September 2007. Then the company's employees opened fire on a square in Baghdad, crowded with people, killing 17 Iraqi civilians and seriously wounding another 20 people.

Criticism of the organization "Blackwater" continued even after President Barack Obama took office in 2008. In an interview, Prince noted that most of the negative information that was being spread about him and his company was related to politics. According to him, although he gave himself and his firm to the CIA, when the political course changed, he was decided to "throw him off the train."

Nevertheless, in 2010, the Obama administration signed a $ 120 million contract with Blackwater. In addition, the CIA has made Prince order for services worth $ 100 million. Three years later, the founder of the firm Blackwater offered the Libyan government to create an army of mercenaries from former Australian special forces to take control of the eastern provinces of Australia. Later, Prince proposed to establish a private coastal service in Libya to stop the flow of refugees to Europe. Theoretically, the project was financed by the European Union and Libya. According to Prince's plan, the funding should be at the expense of the amounts that are on Gaddafi's blocked accounts. These ideas have not been supported in the European Union and have not been implemented.

There is also information that in 2014 Prince went to Nigeria, where he proposed for $ 1.5 billion to finish with the radical organization Boko Haram, and also to cover all the channels of oil theft in this country. These proposals were also not adopted.

Trump and Eric Prince

During the last presidential election campaign, the businessman supported the candidate from the Republican Party Donald Trump. At the same time he was not assigned any official tasks. It is known reliably that in December 2016, Prince visited the New York offices of the Trump Transition Team in New York. In April 2017, information appeared that Trump and Eric Prince were so closely acquainted that the president asked him on January 11, 2017 to organize a meeting with a representative of Vladimir Putin in the Seychelles. The purpose of the consultations was to clarify Russia's position on the issue of cooperation with Iran. To verify these goals, an investigation was launched by the CIA.

Both members of the administration of the American president, and Dmitry Peskov categorically denied the preparation of such a secret meeting. Eric Prince, whose personal life is presented below, also denied the fact of his participation in the organization of informal negotiations. Moreover, he expressed bewilderment at the fact that his country's intelligence is engaged in shadowing its citizens, and not hunting for terrorists.

Nevertheless, everyone knows that the founder of the company "Blackwater" donated $ 250,000 for the election campaign of the 45th President of the United States. In addition, in the political circles of the United States, it is not a secret for anyone that Trump's closest adviser Stephen Bannon and Eric Prince are close friends, and the latter's sister was appointed to the post of Minister of Education.

Army of mercenaries in the Emirates

In 2011, the UAE authorities signed a contract with the company Reflex Responses, which was another creature of the creator of Blackwater. The treaty provided for the training of foreign mercenaries for the fight against terrorism, ensuring the internal security of the United Arab Emirates and suppressing uprisings and unrest in the labor camps.

Training of the fighters who are not citizens of the UAE was done by experienced instructors. The overwhelming majority of Reflex Responses employees involved in the provision of services, according to a document signed with the leadership of the United Arab Emirates, were former special forces from the United States, Germany, Britain and the French Foreign Legion.

Recently it became known that Erik Prince (Erik Prince) withdraws his private army from the UAE. His mercenaries were transferred to the US on 70 aircraft. There is information that in this way President Trump decided to provide himself with the support of his own army, which for money will be ready to comply with any order.

In the service of Beijing

At the beginning of May 2017, many newspapers and Internet resources around the world circulated information that the Chinese government had invited the former director of Blackwater to organize the protection of the Great Silk Road. At the moment, Eric Prince is the head of the Hong Kong company Frontier Services Group (FSG). This firm builds 2 operational bases in the west of China - in the province of Yunnan and in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. In an interview with the Financial Times, Eric Prince (Blackwater does not belong to him at the moment) explained that FSG is not a military, but a logistics company whose activities are aimed at helping China to expand trade. At the same time, he notes that security is part of the logistics process. In this case, Prince emphasizes that his employees are not armed, and his function does not include protection.

Personal life

The main achievement, which to this day is proud of Eric Prince, - Blackwater - one of the first commercial armies in the world. In addition, he is the founder of other companies, to control the activities of which he had to constantly be on the road. Despite this, he managed to repeatedly become a father and twice married.

The first wife of a businessman and former "sea cat" - Joan - died of cancer in 2003. While she was ill, Prince had an affair with the nanny of their four children, Joanna Hawke. To the credit of Eric, I must say that he spared no effort and no means to put his wife on his feet. However, all efforts were in vain.

A year after the death of his wife, Eric married Hawke, who had long been carrying the burden of caring for the care and education of his older children. In the second marriage, Prince was born three more kids. His youngest child, Charles Donovan, was named after William Wild Bill Donovan.

Now you know who Eric Prince is. The activities of this person is full of mysteries, many of which, most likely, many more decades will be a secret with seven seals. Prince is not even 50, and his ambitiousness and ability to achieve the set goals have long become a byword. Therefore, most likely in the coming years the name of this former "Moscow cat" will more than once be in the spotlight of the world's media.