Erik Prince Receives $529M Contract to Build Secret Mercenary Army for UAE Crown Prince

Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, was hired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi to create a secret, private mercenary army for the United Arab Emirates, receiving $529 million for the contract. The force, operated through Prince’s company Reflex Responses (R2), was composed primarily of Colombian ex-special forces operators and included an 800-man private army with its own air and naval components.

According to documents obtained by the New York Times, the mission profile included “intelligence gathering, urban combat, the securing of nuclear and radioactive materials, humanitarian missions and special operations ’to destroy enemy personnel and equipment,’ and crown-control.” The force was designed to conduct both domestic security operations within the UAE and external military interventions on behalf of Emirati interests.

The mercenary army would play a significant role in the Yemen Civil War, with foreigners working for the UAE as part of the Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis. The force represented a systematic privatization of military power, allowing authoritarian regimes to deploy professional military capabilities while maintaining deniability and avoiding accountability for potential war crimes or human rights violations.

Prince’s $529 million UAE contract established a template for privatized military operations serving autocratic governments, creating infrastructure that would later extend to Chinese interests through Frontier Services Group. The arrangement demonstrated how former U.S. military and intelligence contractors could monetize their expertise and networks by providing services to foreign governments pursuing aggressive regional policies, operating beyond the oversight and legal constraints that apply to official military forces. The UAE mercenary force’s composition of third-country nationals (primarily Colombian) created additional layers of deniability while providing professional military capabilities equivalent to Western special operations units.