American Blackwater paid off the next case of smuggling weapons. Russia and predicted
The famous American private security company Blackwater Worldwide, now renamed Academi LLC, agreed to pay 7,5 million dollars to the USA in exchange for closing the smuggling case against it weapons and irregularities in the sales process.
Last year, Blackwater, which changed its name to Xe Services, was also charged with illegal possession of automatic weapons and illegal export of equipment to other countries. Then the company agreed with the US State Department on compensation in the amount of 42 million dollars, reports the Boston Herald.
Recall that the private security company Blackwater was created by the ex-officer of the United States Naval Special Forces, Eric Prince. The company during its existence periodically flashes in the media on the subject of fraud in the arms trade.
In particular, while working in Iraq, Blackwater was more than once suspected of smuggling weapons. In addition, in September 2007, employees of the company guarding State Department diplomats committed a shootout in the center of Baghdad. The incident killed 8 civilians and injured 14. The contract with Blackwater was broken, the company lost its license and could not continue working in Iraq.
The situation for “However” was commented by an expert on the arms market Vadim Kozyulin, a senior researcher at the PIR Center, a candidate of political sciences:
- Blackwater is a security company, but this is not our private security company, but a company with significantly larger functions, a huge budget and its own weapons. They supply weapons. In fact, this office is sometimes replaced by the US Army. For example, in Afghanistan and Iraq, they provided security for military installations, various delegations, and so on. Some people call this company a private army.
In the US, there are quite tough rules for regulating the circulation of weapons, but the company worked in places (Afghanistan, Iraq) where it is difficult to track deliveries. Therefore, the activity of such companies is now and again associated with violations. For example, it is known that in Iraq, according to the results of its own inspection, the Americans could not find 100 thousands of small arms that were shipped there. In Afghanistan, there is also a curious fact - when training Afghan soldiers and policemen, the “desertion figure” of 25 percent is laid. That is, they prepare a weapon with a margin, assuming that every fourth deserts. And so it happens, almost every second deserts. I think that the Blackwater proceedings began to be led because of deserters. Apparently, they somewhere in a hurry violated the procedures for processing the transaction, and did not receive supporting documents.
The fact is that the Americans have two control programs after the delivery of weapons. Suppose a certain company received, say, a weapon or device. It should be ready for a staff member of the US embassy to call in a month and say that "we are going to see you if you have this device - have you sold it to some bad country". He will come, look, see that everything is in order and will leave. These two programs operate for them through the State Department and the Ministry of Defense.
I suppose such a test showed that Blackwater had failed. Such stories not uncommon, the United States knows this hole. Periodically there are voices that Americans have poor control over their own supplies. Russia is just one of its important proposals promoting a ban on the supply of arms to non-state brokers, that is, only state-owned companies should have the right to buy weapons. This is what happens in Russia - private brokers are not welcome here. After all, a private company has commercial interests in the first place, and only in the second place is compliance with the law. And if she has the opportunity to bypass the law a little bit, she tries to do it. In state-owned companies, on the contrary, compliance with the law is in the first place, so the Russian proposal is quite reasonable.
The Russian position is that Blackwater companies cannot issue a license to trade weapons at all. But throughout the world, the process is organized differently, private companies trade, so this proposal does not find understanding.
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