Tuesday, August 7, 2012
North Carolina Justice Comes For Blackwater Kinda
Posted by Vernal Coleman @colemantron on Tue, Aug 7, 2012 at 6:06 PM
Does the name Academi, LLC ring a bell? It's what the private security contractor that once traded under the name Blackwater Worldwide is now called. That's the same Blackwater that found itself embroiled in scandal after its personnel were involved in a 2007 shootout in Baghdad in which 17 Iraqi civilians died.
This afternoon, a North Carolina federal judge unsealed documents detailing the firm's 2010 settlement with the U.S. State Department over multiple violations of the federal Arms Export Control Act. Given the firm's reputation, the details are about what you'd expect of a security contractor operating in a theater of war with limited bureaucratic oversight.
According to court documents, the charges—17 in all—range from bureaucratic violations like failing to obtain a license from the U.S. state department to provide military training to overseas—in this particular instance, "overseas" refers to Canada—military and law enforcement personnel, to charges that in 2005, company employees lied to officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms about gifting the King of Jordan and/or his personnel with firearms.
In addition to admitting to the violations, the company has agreed to pay $42 million settlement. That's on top of a $7.5 million fine. Court documents say that Academi/Blackwater has made efforts to "reform its conduct and to mitigate the damage caused by that conduct." And here it's worth noting that, according to the firm's Wikipedia page Academi remains the largest of three private security firms contracted by the U.S. government.
See the full documents here:Academi__National_-_CRD_.pdf
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