European security contractors sent to train the Democratic Republic of Congo’s army in the eastern city of Goma violated international law, took part in combat, faked their military ranks and lacked proper training.
Such was their unfitness for the task that their involvement contributed to the fall of Goma to the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group they were meant to help the army resist.
Those are just some of the findings of this cross-border investigation by three freelancer journalists.
The contractors, led by French-Romanian citizen Horatiu Potra, had no military experience but still engaged in combat operations in North Kivu, where four were killed. Contractors also armed and financed sanctioned militia groups accused of war crimes.
Legal and military experts who reviewed the evidence classified the contractors as “mercenaries” and noted that those with French citizenship, including Potra, could face prosecution in France.
Many contractors were drawn from Romania’s military, police and gendarmerie. Disillusioned by low salaries, they took fake leave to fight in Goma while keeping their government jobs. Others were supermarket security guards, lorry drivers or border officers. Some fled at the first sign of combat, while others endangered colleagues due to lack of training.
The investigation revealed that Potra used a network of companies — some registered in tax havens — to obscure funds from African contracts. He funnelled money into Romanian real estate, including a villa near Romania’s Defense Ministry offices overseeing foreign military relations.
Potra also financed the political campaign of a far-right presidential candidate who ran in the 2024 elections that Romania’s Constitutional Court subsequently annulled.
Over a year of research and reporting, journalists gathered leaked WhatsApp messages, audio recordings, videos, contracts, company and land registry records, court documents, and testimonies from contractors, prosecutors, paramilitaries, legal and military experts, UN officials and diplomats.
Reporting from the DRC, Romania, Moldova and France, the team pieced together a detailed account of the recruitment, operations, financial networks — and political ambitions — behind these contractors and their leader.
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