Blackwater Buys Way Out of Arms Smuggling Case

The prominent American private security company Blackwater Worldwide, now called Academi LLC, has agreed to pay the $7.5 million to close the case against it on charges of weapons smuggling and violations in the sales process.

Last year, Blackwater, then called Xe Services, was also charged with the illegal possession of automatic weapons and the illicit export of equipment to other countries. In that case, the company reached an agreement with the U.S. State Department to pay $42 million in compensation.

Blackwater, the private security company, was founded by ex-Navy SEAL Erik Prince. Throughout its existence, the company has periodically made news with accusations of fraudulent arms sales.

In particular, Blackwater has been repeatedly suspected of arms smuggling during its work in Iraq. In September 2007, employees of the company who were guarding State Department diplomats were involved in a shootout in Baghdad. As a result of the incident, eight civilians were killed and 14 others were wounded. The contract with Blackwater was terminated, the company lost its licensing, and they were unable to continue working in Iraq.

Vadim Kozyulin, a political scientist, expert on the arms trade and senior researcher at the Russian Center for Policy Studies, commented on the situation for Odnako.

“Blackwater is a security company, but it isn’t like our private security companies. Rather, it is a firm with significantly broader functions, an enormous budget and its own weapons. They also engage in arms sales. This company sometimes actually replaces the American army. In Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, they were responsible for the security of military installations, various delegations and so on. Some even call this company a private army.

The U.S. places rather strict regulations on arms sales, but the company worked in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, where it is difficult to track shipments. This is why the activities of similar companies have turned out to be linked to violations. For example, it is known that during inspections in Iraq, the Americans were unable to locate 100,000 guns that had been shipped there. And when training Afghan soldiers and police, the U.S. curiously factors in a “desertion figure” of 25 percent. That means that extra weapons are manufactured on the assumption that every fourth trainee will desert. As it turns out, nearly every second trainee is a deserter. I believe the proceedings against Blackwater were initiated because of the deserters. In the heat of the moment, they apparently violated the procedure for transactions and did not receive documentation of their receipt.

The problem is that the Americans have two verification programs for weapon shipments. Suppose a company got a weapon or device. It must be ready for a call from the U.S. embassy saying, ‘We’re coming to check whether you have this device and that you haven’t sold it to some undesirable country.’ They come, look, see that everything is in order and leave. These two programs are in effect under the State Department and Department of Defense.

I presume that a verification of this kind showed Blackwater’s blunder. Such stories are not uncommon, but the U.S. knows about these holes. There are periodic complaints that the Americans control their own shipments badly. As a high priority, Russia is advancing its proposal to ban arms sales to non-state brokers — that is, only state-run companies should have the right to buy weapons. That is how it is done in Russia; private brokers are not welcome here. After all, a private company has commercial interests as its top priority, and only then does it concern itself with observance of the law. And if it gets a chance to circumvent the law, it tries to do so. State companies, on the contrary, put observing the law first, which is why the Russian proposal is quite reasonable.

The Russian position is that companies like Blackwater should never be issued a license to sell arms. But all over the world, the process is done differently; private companies are engaged in the arms trade. Therefore, the Russian proposal is not met with understanding.”