Small Wars Journal

Blackwater Founder’s Latest Sales Pitch - Mercenaries for Venezuela

Tue, 04/30/2019 - 9:10am

Blackwater Founder’s Latest Sales Pitch - Mercenaries for Venezuela by Aram Roston and Matt Spetalnick – Reuters

Erik Prince - the founder of the controversial private security firm Blackwater and a prominent supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump - has been pushing a plan to deploy a private army to help topple Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicholas Maduro, four sources with knowledge of the effort told Reuters.

 

Over the last several months, the sources said, Prince has sought investment and political support for such an operation from influential Trump supporters and wealthy Venezuelan exiles. In private meetings in the United States and Europe, Prince sketched out a plan to field up to 5,000 soldiers-for-hire on behalf of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, according to two sources with direct knowledge of Prince’s pitch.

 

One source said Prince has conducted meetings about the issue as recently as mid-April…

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