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NEW: Leaks Expose Conservative Movement Funders Prince and DeVos Family Offshore Money
https://unicornriot.ninja/2020/leaks-expose-conservative-movement-funders-prince-and-devos-family-offshore-money/
Unicorn Riot located offshore corporate entity records supporting the activities of private military businessman Erik Prince and the DeVos family
https://unicornriot.ninja/2020/leaks-expose-conservative-movement-funders-prince-and-devos-family-offshore-money/
Unicorn Riot located offshore corporate entity records supporting the activities of private military businessman Erik Prince and the DeVos family
Former SEAL & founder of Blackwater Inc., (now ‘Academi‘) Erik Prince, & his extended family tied to a new batch of data leaks, revealing offshore business entities filed in the Bahamas, Unicorn Riot has found.
Prince confirmed one of the owners of Salamis LLC, a Blackwater aviation front company which provided services for the U.S. military in Afghanistan.
Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, is currently the U.S. Secretary of Education, and married to Richard “Dick” DeVos Jr.
Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, is currently the U.S. Secretary of Education, and married to Richard “Dick” DeVos Jr.
Since release of 2016 “ #PanamaPapers”, offshore banking data leaks have exposed private holdings of the world’s wealthiest elite.
In 2016, Unicorn Riot reported “Panama Papers” offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca misconfigured servers & exposed source code https://unicornriot.ninja/2016/oracle-chat-raw-code-found-mossack-fonseca-offshore-web-portal/
In 2016, Unicorn Riot reported “Panama Papers” offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca misconfigured servers & exposed source code https://unicornriot.ninja/2016/oracle-chat-raw-code-found-mossack-fonseca-offshore-web-portal/
Today's report: diverse but related threads
-origins and publishing of these leaks
-new data on business activities
-global web of intrigue spun by Erik Prince
-important behind-the-scenes conservative networks sponsored by Prince & DeVos families from 1980s to the present day.
-origins and publishing of these leaks
-new data on business activities
-global web of intrigue spun by Erik Prince
-important behind-the-scenes conservative networks sponsored by Prince & DeVos families from 1980s to the present day.
This latest batch of Bahamas corporate leaks was obtained by the transparency publishing collective #DistributedDenialofSecrets ( #DDoSecrets) and shared with a European journalist network known as European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) for a project dubbed “ #TaxEvaderRadar“.
#DDoSecrets has published a number of large information leaks, starting in late 2018. Among these are several releases that have shed light on much of the estimated $5.6 trillion stashed away in secretive tax havens and offshore jurisdictions around the world.
DDoS members have stated they do not perform any direct access to gather the data themselves, but instead accept & publish datasets from 3rd parties, often anonymous figures. (Without providing evidence, Bahamas government accused DDoS of the incursion itself, which DDoS denies.)
“Wealthy individuals contribute to global inequality by using the Bahamas as a tax haven. [...] Fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil; the majority owners of BMW, and the DeVos and Prince family: all appear in the Bahamas corporate registry." - Lorax B Horne ( @bbhorne) #DDoSecrets EIC
![“Wealthy individuals contribute to global inequality by using the Bahamas as a tax haven. [...] Fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil; the majority owners of BMW, and the DeVos and Prince family: all appear in the Bahamas corporate registry." - Lorax B Horne ( @bbhorne) #DDoSecrets EIC](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdP3smoXoAAHi2M.png "“Wealthy individuals contribute to global inequality by using the Bahamas as a tax haven. [...] Fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil; the majority owners of BMW, and the DeVos and Prince family: all appear in the Bahamas corporate registry.\" - Lorax B Horne ( @bbhorne) #DDoSecrets EIC")
The leaked datasets are posted on “Hunter“, a search engine built to aid in searching complex data sets (e.g. Excel spreadsheets, PDFs). #DDoSecrets “Project X-Ray” aims to crowdsource further investigations into data about the owners of offshore entities.
#DDoSecrets published two major releases in late 2019, Unicorn Riot reported on both.
The #29Leaks, a data set from Formations House, a London-based firm that creates thousands of corporate shells around the world. https://unicornriot.ninja/2019/global-offshore-corporate-networks-exposed-in-massive-data-leak/
The #29Leaks, a data set from Formations House, a London-based firm that creates thousands of corporate shells around the world. https://unicornriot.ninja/2019/global-offshore-corporate-networks-exposed-in-massive-data-leak/
Isle of Man, UK – A blast of sunshine hit a secretive banking network used by global ultra-wealthy figures after a massive hack by “Phineas Fisher“, notorious self-described “hacktivist”, of Cayman National Bank and Trust, serving nearly 1,500 accounts. https://unicornriot.ninja/2019/massive-hack-strikes-offshore-cayman-national-bank-and-trust/
Reminder - Your support enables us to take a thorough look at critical, decades-old power networks like the Erik Prince and Betsy DeVos related entities, and pull that together to educate the public.
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Files in this Bahamas data leak stretched back decades. Filings legally linking Bahamas corporate entities to the Prince and DeVos families are a small yet noticeable part of these leaks. https://unicornriot.ninja/2020/leaks-expose-conservative-movement-funders-prince-and-devos-family-offshore-money/
After analyzing leaked Bahamas corporate registry filings, Unicorn Riot found Daniel G. DeVos, current owner of Orlando Magic basketball team & CEO DP Fox Ventures, (brother of Betsy’s husband, Dick Jr.), appears on leaked docs. DP Fox Ventures developed a Bahamas bay and marina.
Despite being super-wealthy, Daniel DeVos made news after he laid off 30+ staff of the #OrlandoMagic basketball team this week https://twitter.com/JoshuaBRobbins/status/1284305992759611392
After finding the paperwork for the Salamis LLC Bahamas registered corporate shell owned by Erik Prince, we took a closer look at his history of creating complex webs of entities, and finding new ways to militarize small aircraft behind front companies in multiple continents.
A Prince aviation company, ‘Airborne Technologies‘, was commissioned to modify civilian “crop duster” airplanes with mounted machine guns and modern surveillance equipment. One of these weaponized civilian aircraft was sold to Salva Kiir Mayardit’s forces in South Sudan.
Blackwater USA has exemplified the common style of operations among Private Military Companies (PMCs): constantly reconfiguring and refinancing to navigate legal and political constraints, led by businessmen who fancy themselves rugged soldiers of fortune.
While Prince cut a lower public profile in the years after moving out of the U.S. to the United Arab Emirates, he became a person of interest in #RobertMueller's investigation into the 2016 election and the Trump Campaign - including an August 2016 meeting at #TrumpTower.
It was reported Aug. 2016 meeting aimed to coordinate United Arab Emirates & Saudi support for Trump’s presidential campaign. Prince lived in UAE & worked as a security contractor for the UAE government.
Trump later swung hard towards supporting UAE in Gulf rivalry politics.
Trump later swung hard towards supporting UAE in Gulf rivalry politics.
Another meeting in January 2017 in the East African archipelago of Seychelles, organized by UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (known as “MBZ“). Prince was present along with a Russian billionaire named Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of Russian Direct Investment Fund
In 2017, @ House Intelligence Committee testimony Prince neglected to bring up meeting at Trump Tower, stating he had “no formal communications or contact, nor any unofficial role, with the Trump campaign“. Testified working most closely w. #SteveBannon to provide policy papers.
Prince’s connection to Trump was also revealed via his connections to @Project_Veritas, a conservative media sting group seeking to infiltrate and discredit Trump’s political enemies. In March 2020, was reported that Prince recruited ex-spies from U.S. and UK to work w Veritas.
After Prince recruited him, former MI6 officer Richard Seddon, helped run an operation to collect documents and spy on conversations at the Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), reported the NY Times (Both Prince and Betsy DeVos oppose the teachers union)
The Times reported Richard Seddon sent Liberty University graduate Marisa Jorge to infiltrate the union. Ms. Jorge was also sent to infiltrate the U.S. House campaign of Abigail Spanberger. @Project_Veritas and @JamesOKeefeIII were held responsible for both of these operations.
Unicorn Riot reported from the #J20trial proceedings in 2017 and 2018 that @Project_Veritas had released misleading, covertly recorded videos in an attempt to intensify state crackdowns against Trump inauguration protesters. https://unicornriot.ninja/2017/criminalizing-dissent-contested-evidence-introduced-j20-trial-testimony/
This purported #J20trial evidence was exposed and challenged in court, and in turn contributed to the collapse of the vast majority of charges and dismissal by jury trial. #j20trials
Our reporting: https://unicornriot.ninja/2018/us-attorney-drops-38-trump-inauguration-protest-charges/
https://unicornriot.ninja/2018/second-j20-trial-heads-to-jury-despite-court-sanctions-against-prosecutors/
Our reporting: https://unicornriot.ninja/2018/us-attorney-drops-38-trump-inauguration-protest-charges/
https://unicornriot.ninja/2018/second-j20-trial-heads-to-jury-despite-court-sanctions-against-prosecutors/
After generating revenue offshore, ultrawealthy families like DeVos & Prince have poured millions of dollars into Christian right-wing think tanks, foundations and non-profits.
One highly secretive and powerful right-wing think-tank linked: the Council for National Policy (CNP).
One highly secretive and powerful right-wing think-tank linked: the Council for National Policy (CNP).
The late Richard DeVos was once president of the Council for National Policy (CNP), the behind-the-scenes, conservative hardliner organization, which was founded in 1981 by pastor Tim LaHaye, who co-created the apocalyptic “Left Behind” book series.
Prince’s and Betsy DeVos’ mother Elsa Prince was also a member of the organization. CNP is an “elite club” forming a “shadow network” that is the “secret hub of the radical right” in the U.S., uniting Christian fundamentalists and wealthy families to advance shared interests.
The tax-exempt Prince family foundation contributes heavily to multiple orgs in this network, including $15K to CNP in fiscal year ending June 2019, $25K to the homophobic Family Research Council, $15K to the Leadership Institute, and $10K to Focus on the Family (990 IRS filings)
In 2019 Unicorn Riot reported in, "Marketing Hate: Inside Identity Evropa’s Neo-Nazi Messaging" two training seminars conducted exclusively for #IdentityEvropa membership by Alex Witoslawski, an IE member and former employee of the Leadership Institute https://unicornriot.ninja/2019/marketing-hate-inside-identity-evropas-neo-nazi-messaging/
CNP is a mainstay of the hard-right in the United States. In the 1990s, Pat Robertson, #IranContra conspirator Oliver North, and Ed Meese, helped lead the CNP along w. Texas oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt, whose family had long supported right-wing causes like the John Birch Society.
In early 2017, @RightWingWatch reported an ambitious education agenda proposed by CNP to Education Secretary DeVos, including “a gradual, voluntary return at all levels to free-market private schools, church schools and home schools as the normative American practice.”
. @splcenter obtained a 2014 membership list for CNP and found it included many prominent right-wing politicians and businessmen like Kellyanne Conway, Frank Gaffney, Jerome Corsi, Joseph Farah, and Leonard Leo, longtime director of the Federalist Society.
In 2014, CNP included Michael A. Peroutka on its board of governors, also on the neoconfederate and white supremacist League of the South board -- one of the main organizing groups behind 2017 #UnitetheRight rally in Charlottesville VA. https://unicornriot.ninja/far-right-investigations-desk/
In 2018, CNP’s board of directors included Tony Perkins as its president, and Kenneth Blackwell, both of whom are key figures at the Family Research Council, one of the most homophobic policy organizations in America. (Perkins pictured)
According to @alexkotch @EXPOSEDbyCMD, a parallel 501(c)(4) group, CNP Action, has hosted weekly conference calls to coordinate tactics around right-wing efforts to reverse governmental coronavirus quarantine policies.
The recent leaks from the Bahamas registry once again shed intimate details on how rich elites are able are get around domestic tax and corporate disclosure laws and manage billions, if not trillions, of dollars every year in offshore shadow economies. https://unicornriot.ninja/2020/leaks-expose-conservative-movement-funders-prince-and-devos-family-offshore-money/
These families continue to shape the direction of public educational funds into private businesses and shadowy, privatized American military machinery. Tax-exempt revenue from international businesses run by these families also foots the bill for political expenditures.
Thanks for reading our multi-part report about the DeVos and Prince families, their offshore operations and political funding.
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Thank you for supporting our work in educating the public about these complex networks! https://unicornriot.ninja/five-years-of-unicorn-riot/
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Thank you for supporting our work in educating the public about these complex networks!
https://unicornriot.ninja/five-years-of-unicorn-riot/
