Contractor Bought Guns on Black Market: Ex-Employees

Triple Canopy, the company that succeeded Blackwater as the top US security contractor in Iraq, bought its weapons on Iraq’s black market, former employees allege in court documents obtained by ProPublica. “We’re spending a lot of money on these rifles, millions of dollars—where do you think that money is going?” said former program manager Ronald Boline in a deposition for a wrongful termination suit. “We’re supporting people who are trying to kill Americans.”

The contractors also traded booze and Cuban cigars for weapons, Boline said. The federal government launched a criminal investigation into the company in 2007, after getting a tip that it had used stolen cars and captured weapons to push its profit margins to over 40%. The investigation ended without charges. “It’s unclear if anything that Triple Canopy did was criminal,” said the special inspector general for Iraq, but it was “another example of contracting gone wrong.” (More Triple Canopy stories.)