American businessman and former Navy SEAL Erik Prince is worth an estimated $2 billion. Blackwater Worldwide, the military contractor founded and owned by Prince, carried out highly classified government activities in the shadows. When it came to attention in 2007, it was led by Erik, who resigned in 2009. Much of Prince’s wealth is derived from his father’s automotive accessories business.
Founded in 1997, Blackwater is the largest private military company in the world today. In addition to the more than $1.6 billion in federal contracts, the CIA has reportedly awarded the business classified contracts worth $600 million since 2001. A group of businessmen bought Blackwater in 2010 and rebranded it Academi the following year. “Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror” was written by Prince in 2013.
Eric Prince Early Life
On June 6, 1969, in the city of Holland, Michigan, Erik Prince was born under the name Erik Dean Prince. He was raised in a family that included his mother Elsa, father Edgar (a businessman and engineer), and three elder siblings, one of which was the future Secretary of Education for the United States of America, Betsy DeVos.
Erik went to Holland Christian High School, and both he and his father spent a lot of time traveling throughout the world. After graduating from high school, Prince enrolled in the United States Naval Academy for three semesters before dropping out. Despite the fact that he had a deep affection for the United States Navy, he did not like his time at the academy.
After that, he attended Hillsdale College, from where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 1992. During his time as a student at college, Erik held a job with the local sheriff’s department as a cold-water diver and also volunteered for the fire department. In subsequent years, he became employed as a medical technician in emergency situations.
Prince was offered an internship at the White House in the year 1990, but he turned it down in order to begin working for Dana Rohrabacher, a congressman from California. At the age of 21, Erik volunteered to travel to Nicaragua in order to look for a mass grave.
He later stated that they did find such a tomb and that it contained “bones protruding out of the earth and hands bound with wire at the wrists.” In 1992, Prince enlisted as an officer in the United States Navy after graduating from Officer Candidate School. In the end, he joined the Navy SEALs and served with SEAL Team 8 in a variety of locations, including the Middle East, Haiti, and the Balkans.
After his father passed away in 1995, Erik left the Navy to take over as president of Prince Machine Corporation. He remained in that role until his mother sold the company to Johnson Controls for $1.35 billion the following year.
Blackwater Worldwide
In 1997, Prince moved his base of operations to Virginia Beach and began providing financial backing to Blackwater Worldwide. Following the purchase of 6,000 acres of land in North Carolina’s Great Dismal Swamp, he constructed a school for special operations. His choice to do so was influenced by the atrocities that occurred in Rwanda in 1994. Blackwater became the largest private security business used by the State Department after it began providing roughly 1,000 security personnel to overseas outposts and embassies.
In Erik’s autobiography, he writes that he was instrumental in facilitating connections between the CIA and Afghan warlords who played a role in the overthrow of the Taliban and “forced al Qaeda to go into hiding.” In September 2007, workers of Blackwater killed 17 Iraqi citizens after opening fire at Nisour Square in Baghdad. In October 2014, three of the company’s guards were convicted of manslaughter, and in 2019, another guard was convicted on counts of murder.
Blackwater was subjected to criticism as a result of this incident; yet, in 2010, the business was awarded a security contract with the United States Department of State worth $120 million as well as contracts with the CIA totaling $100 million. Prince, in an effort to defend Blackwater, has stated that out of a total of 40,000 personal protection missions, guards only fired their firearms in a total of 200 of them. In his statement, “Nobody that was ever in our care was ever hurt or killed in any way. We ensured their safety while simultaneously losing 30 of our own soldiers to the enemy.”
The name of Erik, who had formerly served on a CIA task team committed to eliminating terrorists, was supposedly disclosed to the media by a congressional committee in charge of monitoring intelligence from the House. After the task force was disbanded in 2009, Prince has stated that he believes he was revealed to the public by Leon Panetta, who had previously served as head of the CIA.
After being hired by the crown prince to put together “an 800 man battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E.,” Erik relocated to Abu Dhabi, which is located in the United Arab Emirates, in the year 2010. In January of 2011, he initiated a program to educate two thousand Somalis on how to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Later on, Prince became the chairman of the board of directors of the transportation and logistics company Frontier Services Group Ltd., as well as the head of the private equity firm Frontier Resource Group.
His Ties To Trump Campaign
At a meeting held in August 2016 at Trump Tower to discuss Iran strategy, Erik was joined by Donald Trump Jr., Joel Zamel, and George Nader. It has been alleged that during the meeting, Nader stated that the crown princes of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia wanted to assist Donald Trump in winning the presidential election.
At January of 2017, Prince also participated in a gathering that took place on the Seychelles and was organised by Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates. According to an article published in April 2017 by “The Washington Post,” this encounter was “apparently part of an effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump.”
Even though Erik testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee that he did not represent the Trump transition and that there was no back-channel involved, the Special Counsel found evidence that contradicted his testimony. This is because Erik testified that there was no back channel involved.
As the head of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, in April 2019 forwarded a criminal referral to the Department of Justice on the grounds that Prince had given false evidence, and the Department of Justice launched an investigation in early 2020. The information that Erik recruited veteran spies to infiltrate Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations, and other groups considered antagonistic to the Trump agenda was reported by “The New York Times” in March of 2020.
Eric Prince Personal Life
Before Joan Nicole’s death from cancer in 2003, Erik married Joan in 1991, and the couple went on to have four children together: Sophia, Christian, Isabella, and Erik. Joan passed away in 2003. During the time that Joan was ill, Prince began an affair with Joanna Houck, who had previously cared for his children, and he became pregnant with her before Joan passed away.
In 2004, Erik and Joanna tied the knot, and they went on to have three children before being divorced in 2012. After that, Prince wed Stacy DeLuke, who had previously worked for Blackwater as a spokesman.
Since his conversion in 1992, Erik has been a devout member of the Catholic faith. Prince has given financial support to a number of Republicans running for office, including Ron Paul, Mike Pence, Pat Buchanan, and Mitt Romney. He also contributed $250,000 to Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency in 2016.
Both the Prince Foundation, which was established in 1979 by Erik’s parents, and the Freiheit Foundation, which Erik established in the 1990s, are charitable organisations that support conservative Christian causes. Erik serves as the vice president of the Prince Foundation.
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