Corrected data released on Thursday by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) shows that Academi—the firm formerly known as Blackwater—is not the top contractor for the Pentagon’s counternarcotics mission in Afghanistan.
According to the revised data, Academi has still, in recent years, made a lot of money in Afghan counternarcotics, just not as much as Northrop Grumman.
Between 2002 and 2013, Academi received $309 million from the Department of Defense to provide training, equipment, and supplies in the effort to limit opium production in Afghanistan—an initiative that has been described as overwhelmingly unsuccessful.
The Sentinel reported on data released Tuesday by SIGAR, which claimed Academi had reaped $569 million in the same time frame. The sum would have made it the leading money grabber of all other private contractors supplying the drug war mission in Afghanistan. Instead, the dubious distinction, actually, goes to Northrop Grumman, which, according to the revised data, raked in $325 million.
Afghanistan is still the world’s leading producer of the opium—a national cash crop whose total value increased by roughly $1 billion between 2012 and 2013.
