# Vectus Global [[Erik Prince]]'s current venture, and the most structurally revealing instance of [[Security-for-Minerals]] in the record — because its business model states the form out loud. ## The model Vectus does not sell soldiers. It sells **revenue**: secure territory, suppress armed groups, then design and operate a modernised tax and customs collection system, **taking a percentage of the revenue increase as payment**. The Haitian contract makes the arithmetic explicit — a ten-year agreement revealed in August 2025, comprising a one-year security phase plus a decade-long customs and border taxation framework, with **Vectus taking 20% of revenue increases for the first three years**, and roughly 200 operatives from the US, Europe and El Salvador deployed by August 2025. This is the direct successor to [[Executive Outcomes]]' Sierra Leone arrangement, in which half of a mine's future tax revenue was assigned against the fee. The difference is that Vectus builds the collection apparatus itself rather than waiting for a mine to reopen — which is a rational response to the failure mode that left EO $19.5 million unpaid. ## The DRC contract > [!note] The dates in circulation are not contradictory — they describe different things > Reuters broke the story on **17 April 2025**, reporting an agreement in principle reached **before January 2025**. Critical Threats dates the engagement by the Congolese **finance ministry** to **late 2024**, as a **five-year, roughly $700 million** contract. The $700m figure enters via secondary reporting, not the original exclusive. Best formulation: *agreed in principle late 2024, publicly reported April 2025, reported as five years and roughly $700 million.* **Original scope, as reported:** improve tax collection and reduce cross-border mineral smuggling, with an **initial focus on copper mines in Katanga**, deploying advisers and commodity-testing experts. Reuters reported explicitly that **no security contractors were planned for active conflict zones**, with initial deployment to southern regions away from M23 territory. The counterparty was Finance, not Defence. **The drift.** By **January 2026** Vectus contractors were reported deployed alongside Congolese special forces in **South Kivu**, and the UN documented the contract's focus shifting toward security for the government during the late-2025 fighting. After M23 seized **Uvira in December 2025**, Reuters reported in February 2026 that Prince's team provided **drone support to Congolese special operations forces** at Kinshasa's request, then withdrew and returned to its primary mission. A Congolese security official characterised it as "in line with the minerals-for-security deal." > [!warning] Three things not to state as fact > **Israeli instructors.** Reported as operating on a **separate track** from Vectus, with an independent mandate to train two Congolese special forces battalions. Israeli officials declined comment; no public documentation confirms the link. Keep the tracks separate — conflating them is the main error in downstream coverage. > > **The 300 Salvadoran mercenaries.** A UN Sanctions Committee report of 5 June 2026 attributes recruitment of over 300 Salvadorans — one-year contracts from July 2025, $4,225 a month — to a **Salvadoran company**, not to Vectus. The Wall Street Journal separately reported in August 2025 that Prince had *discussed* deploying Salvadorans to secure Tshisekedi's palace. **These are not established as the same operation.** > > **The link to the Strategic Partnership Agreement.** No document connects the Vectus contract to the [[US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement]]. The State Department has stated it holds no contracts with Prince or his companies. The connection is contextual and the only bridge is one anonymous official's characterisation. ## Prince's prior Congo interests **[[Frontier Services Group]]**, founded in Hong Kong in 2014 with ties to the Chinese state-owned CITIC and chaired by Prince until 2021, owned a Congolese trucking company from 2015 and in **June 2019 registered Frontier Services Group Congo**, mandated in the business registry to extract minerals and timber. Prince stated plans to raise **$500 million** for African and Asian mining investments targeting cobalt, copper and lithium, explaining: *"Chinese companies are not necessarily interested in the very upstream exploration. They want to buy something in production, which leaves that gap for us."* Which is to say: the man now contracted to collect the Congolese state's mineral taxes registered a Congolese mineral-extraction company seven years ago. ## See also [[Erik Prince]] · [[Blackwater]] · [[Security-for-Minerals]] · [[US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement]] · [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]] · [[Conflict Minerals Ecosystem]]