This is an accepted version of this page Erik Dean Prince (born June 6, 1969) is an American businessman, investor, author, and former U.S. Navy SEAL officer, and the founder of the private military company Blackwater.

[2] Prince and his father toured the world together, visiting the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, divided Berlin, and the battlefields of Normandy.

[10] In 1990, Prince secured an internship in the White House under George H. W. Bush,[11] but soon left to intern for California congressman Dana Rohrabacher, President Ronald Reagan's former speechwriter.

"[26] Blackwater lost a $1 billion contract with the State Department to protect American diplomatic personnel in 2009, after the Iraqi government refused to renew the company's operating license.

[32] Prince resigned as CEO of Blackwater on March 2, 2009, and remained chairman of the board until he sold the company in late 2010 to a group of investors.

[39] Frontier Services Group was reported to be paid $23.3 million by South Sudan's Ministry of Petroleum to transport supplies and perform maintenance on oil production facilities.

[46] To the government of South Sudan, Prince sold three Mi-24 attack helicopters, two L-39 jets, and the services of Hungarian mercenary pilots to operate the aircraft, all for the sum of $43 million.

In 2014, Prince commissioned the company to modify Thrush 510G crop-dusters with surveillance equipment, machine guns, armor, and other weapons, including custom pylons that could mount either NATO or Russian ballistics.

[51] One of the modified crop-dusters was delivered to Salva Kiir Mayardit's forces in South Sudan shortly before a contract with Frontier Services Group was cancelled.

Frontier Services Group owns two of the modified Thrush 510Gs, but since executives learned the craft had been weaponized by Prince, the company has declined to sell or use the aircraft to avoid violating U.S. export controls.

[53] Prince had stated in his November 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee that he had no formal communications or contact, nor any unofficial role, with the Trump campaign.

[54] Asked about this contradiction in March 2019, Prince replied, "I don't know if [the Committee] got the transcript wrong" and "not all the discussion that day was transcribed, and that's a fact.

Also present at that meeting were Nader and Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of the state-owned Russian Direct Investment Fund, who is close to Vladimir Putin.

The Washington Post had reported on April 3, 2017, that American, European and Arab officials said the Seychelles meeting was "part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump."

Prince denied in his November 2017 House Intelligence Committee testimony that he had represented the Trump transition or that the meeting involved any back-channel.

[65][66] United States Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd confirmed on February 4, 2020, that the Department of Justice was opening an investigation into Prince.

[69] The New York Times reported in March 2020 that in recent years Prince had recruited former intelligence agents to infiltrate "Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda.

[75] Prince also reportedly arranged for Project Veritas employees to receive intelligence training, which ended when the trainer quit because the group "wasn't capable of learning".

The operation failed to record a single official disparaging Trump despite extensive expenditures including rental of an expensive Georgetown home.

[78] In April 2020, The Intercept reported that Prince has offered his services as a subcontractor to Russian Wagner group's activities in Mozambique and Libya, suggesting to provide aerial surveillance platforms and a ground force.

[44] Investigations by Rolling Stone and The New York Times, based on an internal United Nations report, have since revealed a number of connections between Prince and the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar's attempts in 2019 to overthrow the U.N.-backed government of Libya.

[79][80] On April 14, 2019, Erik Prince made a proposal of a $80 million deal to Libya's militia leader Khalifa Haftar to supply aircraft and other military equipment.

[82][83] Two of these Emirati firms, Lancaster 6 and Opus Capital Asset were linked to a team of private mercenaries and the unique Pilatus PC-6 ISR aircraft deployed to Libya to support Haftar.

A UN report in March 2021 revealed that the Light, Attack and Surveillance Aircraft (LASA), which debuted at the Paris Air Show in 2017, flew to Serbia for maintenance in August 2018.

As per the reports, Prince worked with a Jordanian royal, Faisal ibn al-Hussein, to organize the sale and transfer of aircraft and other materiel from Jordan to Libya.

[85] Prince’s associate and an Australian pilot, Christiaan Durrant attempted to assure the Jordanian officials that he had “clearances from everywhere” and that the work was approved “at the highest level”.

The UN Group of Experts claimed Prince intended to broker a deal that involved the deployment of over two thousand mercenaries from Colombia, Mexico, and Argentina into North Kivu, a region known for its richness in minerals.

"[93] Speaking of his internship, Prince said, "I saw a lot of things I didn't agree with—homosexual groups being invited in, the budget agreement, the Clean Air Act."

[95][96] In 2006, Prince contributed money to the Green Party of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, as part of a failed effort to help Republican Rick Santorum defeat Democrat Bob Casey.

[90][99] Other Republican politicians to whom Prince has contributed include Ron Paul, Walter Jones, Joe Miller, Todd Tiarht, Mike Pence, Dana Rohrabacher, Oliver North, Pat Buchanan, Jim DeMint, Tom Coburn, Duncan L. Hunter, Ted Poe, Jon Kyl, Pete Hoekstra, and Mitt Romney.