Prince has been pursuing military business in Libya since 2013, mainly through Hifter, the report says. In 2015, Mr. Prince provided the Libyan commander with a private jet, owned by the Hong Kong-based Frontier Services Group, led by Mr. Prince, and which Mr. Hifter used to travel to meetings in Egypt and throughout the region, the report says.
That same year, Mr. Prince called on the European Union with a private military force to patrol Libya’s borders and combat illegal migration. Europeans have declined.
For the outside world, the mercenaries claimed to be working on a geological survey or an oil and gas project. The report says that Bridgeporth, a British research firm then owned by Mr. Prince, was used to manufacture cover stories – just as the company had been used as cover for previous mercenary operations in South Sudan and Uganda.
Travis Maki, an American pilot who previously worked for Bridgeporth, told UN investigators that he flew one of Prince’s planes to Libya shortly before the operation. The plane, a Pilatus PC-6, had already been used by Mr. Prince during his days at Blackwater, and is the same model used by Gibson’s character in the movie “Air America”. In Libya, it was equipped with powerful optical sensors that made it military equipment, weapons inspectors concluded.
In an email, Mark Davies, CEO of Bridgeporth, denied that the company’s aircraft were used for anything other than research and said Maki had not worked for the company since 2018. Mr. Prince’s Border Group, which he has already invested in Bridgeporth, he no longer holds a stake in the company, he added.
Mr. Prince has faced charges of violating international law before. In 2012, UN investigators accused their anti-piracy force in Somalia, the Puntland Maritime Police Force, of “the most blatant violation of the arms embargo by a private security company”.