Blackwater (company)
American private military contractor / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Academi, formerly known as Blackwater and Blackwater Worldwide, is an American private military contractor founded on December 26, 1996,[2] by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince.[3][4] It was renamed Xe Services in 2009, and was again renamed to Academi in 2011, after it was acquired by a group of private investors.[5] In 2014, Academi merged with Triple Canopy to form Constellis Holdings.[6][7][8]
Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Private security services contractor |
Founded | 1997; 27 years ago (1997) North Carolina, U.S. |
Founders | Erik Prince Al Clark |
Defunct | June 2014; 10 years ago (June 2014) |
Fate | Merged with Triple Canopy |
Headquarters | 12018 Sunrise Valley Drive Suite 140 Reston, Virginia, U.S.[1] 38.9484°N 77.3618°W / 38.9484; -77.3618 |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Craig Nixon and Allen Schaffer |
Products | Law enforcement training, logistics, close quarter training, and security services |
Services | Security management, full-service risk management consulting |
Website | www |
Constellis and its predecessors provide contract security services[9] to the United States federal government. Since 2003, it has provided services to the Central Intelligence Agency.
In 2007, Blackwater received widespread notoriety for the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, when a group of its employees killed 17 Iraqi civilians and injured 20. Four employees were convicted in the United States and later pardoned on December 22, 2020, by President Donald Trump.[10][11]