Blackwater founder Erik Prince again is providing security services, focused on countries where the Trump administration would prefer not to spend for military involvement.
Prince was Blackwater’s CEO until it was sold in 2010. He now runs Vectus Global to partner “with governments, international organizations, and private-sector leaders to help them solve some of their most intractable problems,” according to the Vectus website.
Vectus is comprised of a network of companies providing security work for Latin American and African countries, including in Ecuador, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Haiti.
Prince, 56, said potential Vectus customers are places where U.S. influence has receded.
“We are gap-fillers, providing law-enforcement solutions where the lack of government capacity has led to lawlessness,” he said, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The former Navy SEAL told the Journal he sees Vectus capitalizing on President Donald Trump’s cuts to foreign aid.
With Trump back in the White House, Prince has supporters in the administration. Among his friends is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“I’m not close to Trump. But I am close to his staff,” Prince told the Journal.
Prince this year has advised Ecuador on how to fight criminal gangs and struck a deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo to help secure and tax its mineral wealth.
Prince recently said Vectus Global reached a 10-year agreement with the Haitian government to fight the country’s criminal gangs and set up a tax collection system.
After the security situation is stabilized, the firm would be involved in designing and implementing a program to tax goods imported across Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic, he said.
Prince added that he expected to wrestle control of major roads and territories from the gangs in about a year.
“One key measure of success for me will be when you can drive from Port-au-Prince to Cap Haitien in a thin-skinned vehicle and not be stopped by gangs,” Prince said.
Under Prince, Blackwater became America’s largest mercenary force until it lost its standing after violent actions during former President George W. Bush’s war on terror became known.
Although Blackwater offered as many as 20,000 contractors, Vectus currently employs dozens.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, Prince said he could be the U.S. equivalent of Russia’s Wagner Group mercenaries.
Prince said he would stand with U.S companies that “start to go abroad for energy, minerals, infrastructure projects,” the Journal reported.
Reuters contributed to this story.
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