Who is Erik Prince? Betsy DeVos' brother and Trump ally violated UN arms embargo in $80 million operation
Erik Prince, a prominent supporter of former president Donald J Trump and the brother of former US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has reportedly been found to have supplied arms and ammunition to a militant leader in Libya. By sending the weapons, Prince supposedly violated a United Nations arms embargo.
United Nations investigators have reportedly found that the weapons supplied by Prince could have led to overthrowing of the internationally-backed government in the North African country, as the militia commander who procured the weapons was planning on leading a coup on the existing government.
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Who is Erik Prince?
51-year-old Erik Dean Prince is a former U.S. Navy SEAL officer who is a successful businessman at present. He is the founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, where he served as the CEO till 2009. He is the present CEO of private equity firm Frontier Service Group.
Born on June 6, 1969, in Holland, Michigan, Erik Prince is the youngest of four children of his parents Edgar Prince, the founder of Prince Corporation, and Elsa (Zwiep). He is also the brother of Betsy DeVos, who served as the US Education Secretary in the Trump regime.
Erik Prince graduated from Holland Christian High School and thereafter attended the US Naval Academy. Before his acceptance into the academy, Prince took some time off for travelling the world with his father. The old remnants of Dachau concentration camp in Germany, the battlefields of Normandy, or divided Berlin - such historical locales had a deep impact on Prince, as per his mother.
Prince quit the Naval Academy after three semesters as he admittedly disliked the institution. After pursuing a BA degree in Economics from Hillsdale College, he volunteered as a firefighter and cold-water diver - eventually becoming an emergency medical technician.
Prince has had an illustrious record in the White House as a young, freshly graduated intern, where at the mere age of 21 years he volunteered to find a mass grave in Nicaragua, exposing the mass murders under President Daniel Ortega.
After a glorious period of service in the Navy for 3 years, Prince quit prematurely due to his father's death, which required him to assume control of the family business. However, Prince Corporation was later sold by his mother.
The Rwandan genocide of 1994 prompted Prince to start the private military firm Blackwater Worldwide in 1997. In fact, he went on to procure $2 billion worth of government security contracts as an award, aside from $1.6 billion unclassified federal contracts.
How did Prince violate the UN arms embargo?
Prince's company first came under controversy after his Blackwater private forces killed 17 Iraqi civilians in 2007, raising the question of the abuse of privatized military force in USA.
Much later in his career, Prince donated generously to Donald Trump's election campaign and became a close ally to the former president along the likes of Steve Bannon or Roger Stone. Soon after, Prince's role in the Trump-Russia inquiry came under the scanner as it was found that he had met with a Russian banker in 2017. In fact, it was found that Prince had met with UAE Crown Prince, Russian representatives, and other European, American, and Arab officials in order to secure a back channel communication between Moscow and president Trump, reported Washington Post.
And now, Erik Prince's open violation of the UN Arms embargo has come to light, after The New York Times obtained a confidential report from the United Nations. The investigative report stated that at the helm of a major battle in Libya in 2019, Prince helped deploy foreign mercenaries, attack aircraft, gunboats, and cyber warfare amenities - all worth $80 million - to plan and kill targetted Libyan commanders.
This, however, is not the first time Prince had struck a deal in war-torn countries which are rich in resources.
During the UN investigation, Prince refused to cooperate while his lawyer blatantly refuted the findings.
The report also raised the question that whether Prince's alliance with Trump helped him manage the Libya operation. The question came because the investigation revealed how a friend of Prince traveled to Jordan to buy off surplus Cobra helicopters from the military there, with 'clearances' from the highest levels of the administration, while it would otherwise require strict permission and monitoring from the US government. In fact, the Jordanian military refrained from going forward with the sale since the 'clearances' did not satisfy them.
The 121-page detailed UN report includes highly secretive information about Prince's covert ways to access offshore bank accounts to help supply weapons to over 8 countries, and even manage a Hollywood star's appearance to suit his business purposes. It once again throws light on the secretive world of operations of international mercenaries like Prince and how they are still helping to shape world politics creating mayhem in countries simply for the money.