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Comment by ilamont | Hacker News Reader

U.S. authorities have so far failed to bring charges against the contractors for illegally traveling out of the United States with their weapons, which requires a license.

I'm skeptical charges will ever be brought. Ex-military security contractors are ubiquitous in certain parts of the world, and seem to live by a different set of rules.

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I'd love to read more about the process of contractors acquiring those special rights. Maybe you got some further reading?

It's all about who you call after you have been detained.

for example, private military contracting is outright explicitly illegal in Russia. That didn't prevent in anyway a well known Russian private military company to fight in Ukraine and Syria ... both times of course for the side supported by Putin.

The Russian "Blackwater" is called Wagner Group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group

These guys are also in Venezuela right now:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/25/venezuela-madu...

wink and a nod. Poor Obama has to give speeches to make some money, rulers in Haiti like countries make that much before 8am. Charges against such rulers are brought only when the wheels are not greased all the way, or when the opposition wants to take over. USA knows that, but they know that the next person will also steal, maybe even more, so they ignore a lot of things if you do a service for them. My guess is that this guy was given an un-offical pass, as long as...

The country may be poor but the budgets are still in the billions or tens of billions. x% goes to the leaders, plus a lot more for permits, buying state enterprises, telecom licenses, solve tax issues etc etc...

Yes, many folks that live in more functional western democracies don't understand that most people who live in corrupt countries and end up protesting in the streets aren't necessarily protesting the existence of corruption and graft (which are ambient and assumed) but rather the failure of these particular corrupted grafters to hold up their end by stealing maybe only two-thirds-ish of the money and at least trying to do something like what they were supposed to with the other third.

A lot of interesting references here: http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/International_Weapons_L...

Then for the US I'd switch to this: https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/usao-me/legacy/2...

And after that I would probably look through the Federal Register for references to any executive orders concerning the extra-territorial use and possession of firearms by non-law enforcement personnel.

> which requires a license

From which country? The US has no restrictions on lawful transport of weapons in and out of country.

This may fall under ITAR if the weapons were select fire and/or restricted to LE/MIL. Not all weapons can be freely transported, especially if it's considered military tech.

A previous article about these guys that was posted here said their weapons were semiautomatic, as well as obtained in Haiti.

If true, that means the article claim about a license was false.

Even if they were semi, many popular optics are restricted by ITAR.

Keyword being lawful?

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