DAKAR, June 13 (Reuters) – A company run by private security firm Blackwater’s founder Erik Prince has registered a subsidiary in Democratic Republic of Congo with a mandate to extract minerals and timber and conduct financial operations, corporate filings show.
Prince, who renamed Blackwater and sold it in 2010 after several of its employees were indicted on unlawful killing charges in connection with their work as U.S. government contractors during the Iraq War, has run Hong Kong-based Frontier Services Group (FSG) since 2014.
FSG has close ties to the state-owned Chinese investment company CITIC and provides security, aviation and logistics services to Chinese firms operating in Africa.
FSG has owned a small Congolese trucking company called Cheetah Logistics in Congo since 2015, but the new subsidiary, Frontier Services Group Congo, has a more expansive mandate, according to a filing with Congo’s business registry.
Among its aims are “the exploration, exploitation and commercialisation of minerals”, forest logging, security, transport, construction and “all financial, investment and project financing operations, both public and private”.
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