The power and influence of the mercenary army known as Blackwater peaked in the summer of 2007. Their immense might was clearly demonstrated when the State Department deployed Jean Richter to Iraq to audit the firm's $1 Billion contract with the Pentagon.

Just weeks before Blackwater guards fatally shot 17 civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007, the State Department began investigating the security contractor’s operations in Iraq. But the inquiry was abandoned after Blackwater’s top manager there issued a threat: “that he could kill” the government’s chief investigator and “no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq,” according to department reports...
“The management structures in place to manage and monitor our contracts in Iraq have become subservient to the contractors themselves,” the investigator, Jean C. Richter, wrote in an Aug. 31, 2007, memo to State Department officials. “Blackwater contractors saw themselves as above the law,” he said, adding that the “hands off” management resulted in a situation in which “the contractors, instead of Department officials, are in command and in control.”

The Nisour Square massacre started a chain of events that would eventually discredit Blackwater, but it didn't happen immediately or quickly.
Blackwater's huge Iraq contract was renewed in 2008, and wasn't allowed to expire until 2009.
Even after the Nissour Square killers indicted, the CIA gave Blackwater a $100 million contract in 2010, the same year that founder Erik Prince sold the firm and it's name was changed to “Academi”.
The Pentagon continued to find favor with Blackwater's services in Afghanistan.

Despite a sordid and deadly reputation in Iraq, the mercenary army that began as Blackwater and is now known as Academi was a top recipient of Pentagon contracts for training Afghanistan’s security forces from 2002 to 2014, a government watchdog reported Tuesday...
Blackwater/Academi’s total of $569 million places the mercenary at number five on the contract total. Not bad for a company responsible for so much murder and mayhem.

In fact, the very same week that the Nissour Square murders were sentenced, the Pentagon awarded Blackwater an $8.3 million no-bid contract in Afghanistan.
This is despite continuations of illegal conduct.

In 2012, Academi paid a $7.5 million fine to settle a case involving illegally exporting ammunition and body armor to war zones, after having previously paid $42 million in a related suit in civil court. Academi also faces allegations from former employees that they were fired after blowing the whistle on a co-worker who falsified reports of firearm proficiency.

Expanding the Franchise

Despite the continuing largess from the Pentagon for work in Afghanistan, it just wasn't enough.
So Academi went abroad. The crown prince of Abu Dhabi hired them.

The crown prince of Abu Dhabi has enlisted the infamous founder of Blackwater security services to build him an 800-member private army of foreign troops for the United Arab Emirates.
According to documents obtained by the New York Times Erik Prince’s new company, Reflex Responses, was hired and paid $529 million by the prince to form a new battalion of foreign fighters to carry out special operations, destroy internal revolts and defend urban areas and oil fields from terrorist attacks.

Hired thugs. The perfect job for Blackwater.

And so it was, until last year, when UAE decided to join the Saudis in a war in Yemen.
Yemen is the place where Saudi-led forces are committing war crimes on a daily bases, and we support it.
Earlier this month Saudi Arabia also gave Academi a huge contract to fight their way in Yemen.

According to the contentious security chief, the UAE-brokered agreement has been signed between Mohammad Bin Salman–the deputy crown prince of Saudi Arabia and Erik Prince, a resident of UAE, and Craig Nixon the company’s incumbent CEO.
The deal was orchestrated by Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.
The $539 million-agreement guarantees Saudi Arabia 1400 Academi security servicemen who will engage in combat actions along with Saudi Armed Forces in neighboring Yemen.

It's interesting to note how Erik Prince was involved in the deal despite having publicly sold Blackwater years ago.

Lt Gen. Khalfan said that Saudi government is obliged to compensate each dead Academi mercenary family with $ 300.000, whereas a mere bagatelle of $ 35,000 is being paid for local Yemeni mercenaries and $ 150,000 for any foreign fighters.

Now Blackwater mercs can shoot down unarmed people with the best of them, but this is actual war. The other guys have guns too, so this might not be so easy.

A Dec. 10 report from Iran’s PressTV, citing Yemeni news sources, claimed that “15 Blackwater foreign fighters” were killed in clashes with Houthi forces, who currently control the Yemeni government. PressTV reported that “80 Saudi-led troops, including 42 Blackwater mercenaries,” were killed in a ballistic missile attack on Dec. 13. And a Jan. 31 report claimed that a “Blackwater commander,” Nicholas Petros, “was killed along with a group of mercenaries fighting for the Saudi regime in its war on Yemen.”

A Blackwater spokesman was quick to deny they were getting their asses kicked.
OK. Maybe, maybe not. It's hard to say, until this happened.

The U.S. based Blackwater Group has reportedly abandoned the Ta’iz front in western Yemen after suffering heavy casualties over the last two months while fighting alongside the Saudi-led Coalition forces and the Hadi loyalists.
Local activists have reported this news after they intercepted a communication between Blackwater officers and members of the Saudi-led Coalition in the coastal province of Ta’iz.

It couldn't happen to a better bunch of murderers.
Now when it says "abandoned", it doesn't mean "an authorized retreat". It means abandoning their posts and running for their lives.
How do I know this? Because this news came out last week.

The first batch of mercenaries from the private US military firm DynCorp has arrived in the Yemeni city of Aden to replace paid militants from another American company.
Under a USD-3-billion contract between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and DynCorp, mercenaries from the company are to be deployed to Yemen, where UAE forces are fighting against the Houthi rebels on Saudi orders, Khabar News Agency quoted an official with Yemeni Defense Ministry as saying.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the first group of the mercenaries recently arrived in the port city of Aden to replace those of Academi, a notorious American group formerly known as Blackwater.

Yeh, replacing one group of hired thugs who ran when things got tough, with another group of hired thugs. That's our allies!
DynCorp was involved in a sex trafficking scandal in Bosnia in 1999, and then another one in Afghanistan in 2010, but this time while working for the Pentagon.

There is nothing, literally nothing, that a privileged, head-chopping royal prince hates more than when his overpaid, hired goons run away from the prince's enemy. It makes one wonder how those mercs are going to get out of Yemen with their heads still attached to their shoulders?
It also makes one wonder how many more $500 million security contracts a mercenary group can expect when the mercs run away from battle?

Meanwhile with Erik Prince

After Erik Prince wrote his book, Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror, he was getting bored.
What's a dirtbag mercenary to do when he's not killing unarmed civilians? Earlier this week, we found out.

ERIK PRINCE, founder of the now-defunct mercenary firm Blackwater and current chairman of Frontier Services Group, is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and other federal agencies for attempting to broker military services to foreign governments and possible money laundering, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the case.
What began as an investigation into Prince’s attempts to sell defense services in Libya and other countries in Africa has widened to a probe of allegations that Prince received assistance from Chinese intelligence to set up an account for his Libya operations through the Bank of China. The Justice Department, which declined to comment for this article, is also seeking to uncover the precise nature of Prince’s relationship with Chinese intelligence.

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy. It seems that the government has been watching Prince for over a year.
Once a dirtbag, always a dirtbag.

“He’s a rogue chairman,” said one of Prince’s close associates, who has monitored his attempts to sell mercenary forces in Africa.
That source, who has extensive knowledge of Prince’s activities and travel schedule, said that Prince was operating a “secret skunkworks program” while parading around war and crisis zones as FSG’s founder and chairman. “Erik wants to be a real, no-shit mercenary,” said the source. “He’s off the rails exposing many U.S. citizens to criminal liabilities. Erik hides in the shadows … and uses [FSG] for legitimacy.”

And in case you've forgotten Blackwater's Greatest Hits from Iraq video is below. Don't watch it on an empty stomach.