Border Profiteers

Accenture is one of the world's largest consulting firms in the areas of corporate and strategy consulting, technology and outsourcing. It advises governments, authorities and companies on digital transformation.

As part of a far-reaching reorganization of the Finmeccanica Group, AgustaWestland was merged into the Finmeccanica Helicopter Division on January 1, 2016. Finmeccanica was renamed Leonardo on January 1, 2017. AgustaWestland was and is specialized in the production of helicopters, which are used not only by the military of many countries but also for border protection.

As Europe's largest armaments group, Airbus offers especially to the military a broad portfolio ranging from combat helicopters and aircrafts, satellite reconnaissance and communication to the operation of drones in for example foreign deployment of the German Federal Armed Forces.

The Austrian Institute of Technology, headquartered in Vienna, is the successor organisation to the Austrian Study Society for Atomic Energy. On Wikipedia, AIT is described as one of the largest non-university research institutions in Austria, giving the impression that it is a public institution. In its web presence, however, AIT presents itself as a company and in fact it is a limited liability company with several "subsidiaries", only 50.46% are owned by the state. The rest of the shares are held by the "Association for the Promotion of Research and Innovation" of the Federation of Austrian Industries.

Aleph is a venture capital fund that claims to manage US$850 million and invests primarily in Israeli start-ups in the field of artificial intelligence.

Armira is a Munich-based investment holding company.

Aselsan is one of the most important quasi-state owned Turkish arms companies and produces mainly electronic components for the core Turkish weapons systems. In the war over Nagorno-Karabakh in autumn 2020, which was fought mainly with combat drones, weapon systems from Aselsan were also used by Azerbaijan and are said to have contributed significantly to its victory.

Atlantic Labs is a Berlin-based fund for venture capital, which is investing in various startups, especially in the area of artifical intelligence and cloud services.

Atos has a €11 billion revenue and more than 111,000 employees in 71 countries.

BAE Systems is the biggest British arms company and one of the major suppliers of weapon systems worldwide.

Cancom is an IT Service Provider supporting the "digital transformation" of companies and governance with about 4.000 employees.

Carl Zeiss AG is a company in the precision mechanics and optics industry. As a company with a long tradition and world market leader in optical systems, the company was and is extensively involved in equipping military, police and border protection authorities. This ranges from classic binoculars to complex surveillance systems for coasts and land borders to sensor technology used in air and drone defence.

CEVISIO is a provider of "business software and services for German mid-sized companies" based in Torgau, Saxony. It emerged in 2003 as an independent company from the software department of an IT system house.

Civipol is a consulting company, 40% of which belongs to the French state and was founded primarily to support the French Ministry of the Interior. It also provides technical services for the Ministry, which in many other countries are carried out by the intelligence services. Accordingly, the largest shareholders, Airbus, Thales and Idemia, are mainly large defence and technology companies.

The company CLS began in the 1980s as a service provider for global communication and localisation services and has since specialised more and more in satellite-based Earth observation, especially of oceans and inland waters (among other things through strategic acquisitions worldwide). In a (as of May 2021) current image film entitled "For Earth From Space", "Mother Nature" herself puts a three-minute text to humanity into the mouth, according to which the services of CLS would not only protect nature and the environment, but also save people in wars and disasters. Among other things, it says, "They [CLS] stand by you …

Dassault Aviation is a French aircraft manufacturer and, among other things, producer of the "Rafale" fighter jet.

Deloitte is a global consulting firm headquartered in London and is one of the so-called "Big Four" auditing firms. It advises many offices, authorities and ministries and has already worked for almost all EU institutions - primarily in strategy consulting and human resources management tailored to this.

DJI is a company founded in 2006 and headquartered in Shenzhen, China, which produces numerous drones for public, industrial and also private use. Especially in the field of relatively light and inexpensive quatrocopters (small drones with four rotors), it is probably the world market leader. Drones from DJI are also used by European military and police forces. In addition to drones, DJI also offers the "educational robot" RoboMaster S1, which is intended to offer children an introduction to robotics, programming and AI - and has a small cannon with which "gel pellets" can be fired.

The German Aerospace Center is one of the largest research institutions in Germany with over 30 locations.

EASP Air is a global service provider for aerial maritime surveillance, Coast Guard- and ISR operations and Special Air Charter support.

Elettronica GmbH was initially founded in Meckenheim near Bonn as a branch of the Italian joint stock company of the same name to handle major orders from the German armed forces. It initially specialized on components for electronic reconnaissance and electronic combat and supplied corresponding components for the Starfighter, the Eurofighter and the NATO NH90 combat helicopter, among others.

Meckenheim is also the location of the federally owned IT service provider of the Bundeswehr (BWI GmbH) as well as the Federal Criminal Police Office. It is virtually in sight of two Fraunhofer Institutes (FHR and FKIE), which are very active …

Ericsson is a Swedish communications service provider with a long tradition. The company offers government agencies special networks for communication (government radio) and thus fundamentally benefits from the growing exchange of information and data volumes.

The Munich-based company ESG (Elektroniksystem und Logistik GmbH) was founded in the 1960s as a joint spin-off of the companies AEG/Telefunken, Rhode & Schwartz and Siemens. It was initially tasked to plan the electronic components for the German Tornado fighter aircraft (which is also designed for use with nuclear weapons). Further defense contracts followed, mainly from Germany, e.g. for the development of the fire control system for the Gepard anti-aircraft gun tank. Today (as of September 2021), ESG is majority-owned by the investment company Armira Partners GmbH & Co KG, according to de.wikipedia.de .

Everis is a global company dedicated to the "disruption" and "digital transformation" of government agencies and enterprises, i.e. helping them move their data and services to "the cloud". Everis has been part of the Japanese NTT DATA Corporation since 2013.

The "Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung" is organized as a private association, but its nearly 80 institutes receive their basic funding from the federal and federal state governments. A large proportion of its contract research is also financed by public funds, the vast majority of the rest by industry. The explicit goal is application-oriented research for industry. However, it is also established practice for scientists to apply for patents and found companies themselves based on their research at the Fraunhofer Institutes in order to commercialize new technologies.

The nearly 80 institutes work on a wide range of topics. However, …

GAF AG is a German company with "over 200 highly qualified" employees that sells satellite imagery - including to Frontex. Similar to COLLECTE LOCALISATION SATELLITES, it focuses on environmental and climate monitoring applications in its external presentation, but explicitly lists "security and defense" among the industries in which it is active, and also serves the extractivist industry - mining companies. Its headquarters are in Munich, but the company also has a site in Neustrelitz. This is a good kilometer away from the DLR site there, a central ground station for both civil and military satellite reconnaissance for Germany and …

Giesecke & Devrient goes back to a company founded in 1852. Since then, the company, headquartered in Munich, has specialized in printing banknotes and identity documents. Accordingly, it was also involved in fascism and colonialism. In recent decades, it has expanded its activities to include digital payment processing, identification systems and databases.

The Alsfeld-based company, which employs around 100 people (as of May 2020), specializes in commercial vehicle bodies. In addition to camping vehicles, it also offers money transporters, police vehicles and prisoner transporters.

In 2017, Airbus spun off its electronics division as Hensoldt. Since 2020, Hensoldt has been a stock corporation. The shares are held by Leonardo (25.1%), KKR & Co (17.9%), among others. The FRG holds a blocking minority of 25.1%, which is managed by the Ministry of Defense. In fact, however, the Airbus and Hensoldt companies remained partially inextricably linked, even geographically. Hensoldt is considered the world's leading supplier of military sensor and radar technology, which the company also offers for border protection. On its homepage (as of July 2022), the company writes: "Our security solutions are well suited to monitor …

Indra has its roots in the infrastructure and defense industries. Accordingly, Indra has also benefited extensively from several EU armaments research projects (including Ocean2020), positioning itself, by its own admission, as a "key player" in siphoning off EU armaments funds. Again, the company's focus is on information networks, cybersecurity, near-shore surveillance and unmanned systems.

In the 2021 financial year, Indra achieved revenue of € 3.390 million, had 52,000 employees, a local presence in 46 countries and business operations in over 140 countries.

Founded in 1999 and headquartered in the Adlershof Technology Park in Berlin, IQ Wireless offers on its homepage the installation and support of directional radio networks, as well as terrestrial early fire detection and satellite communication solutions. For a company with (according to its own information) about 30-35 employees, IQ Wireless was and is involved in relatively high-profile research projects.

King ICT is one of the most important Croatian system houses. For a while, it belonged to the Croatian "MAN S" group, which has a total of around 1,500 employees (as of November 2020). King's portfolio is broad and ranges from digital classrooms to cloud and (HR) management services for companies, to traffic monitoring in cities ? for example in Zagreb, where the company is based. King ICT has other branches in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia and is trying to establish itself as a leading service provider for authorities in the entire region. It also …

Leonardo (formerly Finmeccanica) is Italy's largest company specialized on defense, security and aerospace. It belongs to the ten globally dominating defense contractors.

The NATO Science and Technology Organization (STO), with its headquarter in Brussels, is NATO's central institution for technology monitoring and development. It states that it employs 6,000 scientists and is part of a “network” of 200,000 experts in the member and partner countries. It has separate working groups for vehicle technology, information systems and sensors, among others. The STO has a strong focus on maritime armaments and underwater systems, and related activities are coordinated from its "Center for Maritime Research and Experimentation" in La Spezia, Italy.

The Naval Group is a defense company largely owned by the French state. The remaining shares are held (up to 2.5%) by the armaments company Thales. While Thales focusses on the aerospace industry, the Naval Group specializes primarily on equipping naval forces and coastguards. Besides the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, the Naval Group produces various frigates, i.e. for the French and Italian navies, as well as nuclear-capable submarines and torpedoes. Besides armament in the narrower sense, the Naval Group is also involved in the planning and construction of power plants, including nuclear power plants.

NTT-Data is a Japanese Japanese multinational information technology (IT) service and consulting company.

The Turkish bus and military vehicle manufacturer Otokar started in the 1960s as a manufacturer of coaches and regular-service buses under the license of &Magirus-Deutz and as such still supplies the Berlin public transport company, among others. In the 1980s, the company also started armaments production and is, among other things, the main contractor for the production of the most important Turkish battle tank "Altay".

Pandora Intelligence is a Dutch start-up that specializes on the evaluation of publicly available data (open source intelligence), but also gives the option to include additional non-public data from the respective "customers".

The PIAP (Przemysłowy Instytut Automatyki i Pomiarów), Industrial Research Institute for Automation and Measurements) is categorized by the EU Commission as a "research organization", but it also manufactures products serially, especially robotics and market them globally. Under the URL "antiterrorism.eu" used solely by PIAP, it praises its products for the police and military and lists Pakistan, Belarus, China and other as customers.

Science for Humanity (S4H) is a company founded in 2004 in Bruges, Belgium. It seems that it offers only one family of products: The Human presence, Movement & heartbeat Detection System (MDS), which uses seismic sensors to detect the heartbeat and thus the presence of people in vehicles and e.g. containers. S4H offers the MDS in portable, mobile and stationary versions.

Safran is one of the largest manufacturers in Europe in the aerospace sector. The company is a supplier to Airbus and is involved in many of the major armaments projects, especially in Germany and France, including the Tiger combat helicopter, the A400M military transporter and the French multirole combat aircraft Rafale (together with Thales and Dassault).

Schönhofer Sales & Engineering is a medium-sized company that was founded in 1983 by a former lieutenant colonel in the Bundeswehr and initially specialized on the maintenance of the communication systems of the Bundeswehr.

Selex evolved after an attempt to merge the electronics divisions of defense groups BAE Systems (UK) and Leonardo/Finmeccanica (IT). Following the exit of BAE Systems, Selex was eventually established as a subsidiary of Finmeccanica. Selex was one of those companies that lobbied most intensively for the technological upgrade of the borders in the first decade of the century, thus opening up a new foothold for the European defense industry.

The Israeli company was founded in 1993 by members of the Israeli army and specializes in so-called "(M)UGI "s ((Mini-) Unattended Ground Imaging Sensors), i.e. sensors that can monitor areas over a longer period of time without operators and maintenance. Radar and thermal sensors are used, which can independently identify and report suspicious behavior. Particular emphasis is placed on the possibilities of covert or camouflaged deployment.

The former security technology division of Siemens was sold to &Rheinmetall AG in 1993 and later acquired by Smiths Group. Smiths Group is known worldwide for its metal detectors and body scanners, which are used primarily at (air)ports and other sensitive sites. Smiths Detection also supplies hardware and software to screen baggage, trucks and containers, automatically identifying anomalies and suspicious items.

Sopra Steria is a result of the merger of the two French companies Sopra and Steria in 2014. Sopra began as a software company, while Steria was initially active primarily in research and development and increasingly in IT infrastructure. However, from 2000 onwards, both companies acquired other companies on a large scale and expanded their portfolios. Today (as of 2020), Sopra Steria describes itself with "46,000 employees" as a "leading European management and technology consultant" with the goal of "driving digital transformation." The German homepage lists a total of 13 business units, including "Aerospace", "Defence", "Government" and "Homeland Security".

Stoof describes itself as a "tradition-rich and family-run company in Brandenburg [...] that police and security authorities can rely on anytime, anywhere!" It specializes on manufacturing armored vehicles, including sedans, jeeps and trucks.

Tekever was founded in 2000 by computer scientists and engineers from the Instituto Superior Técnico. It quickly became one of the most important suppliers of drones for maritime surveillance. It also offers drones for military applications.

FLIR is the abbreviation for "Forward Looking Infrared" and describes a technology that is mainly used on board ships, helicopters and drones and has made great progress in recent years in terms of range and resolution. Through the publication of drone videos, the technology has come to dominate the visual perception of wars among the general public. Especially around 2010, many European coast guard patrol boats were equipped with FLIR. For some years now, FLIR technology has also been increasingly used in so-called "autonomous driving" and is therefore becoming more and more common.

Thales is one of the ten largest defence companies in the world, supplying everything from satellite communication modules and ground radars to autonomous weapon systems on ships, mainly to armed forces.

Founded in 2003, the company specialises in equipment components for helicopters. These are offered for both military and civilian applications.

In 2010, large parts of the company were sold to the US defence giant Lockheed Martin. Headquartered in Australia, the company has offices in Florida (USA), Rome (Italy), Ärla (Sweden) and Dubai, among others. In 2018, the investment fund Tadvest Limited held 20% of the shares in each of Tracca Systems and its sister company TrakkaTech, which is much more specialised in purely military robotics applications.

Travizory is the start-up of an engineer from Neuchâtel who previously worked at SITA, among others. The company offers software solutions that certify travellers' "harmlessness" (in the sense of the security authorities) and issue visas based on biometric data and artificial intelligence. According to the company's founder, the systems have access to "databases of lost or stolen passports and databases of people wanted by organisations such as the FBI, the CIA, the United Nations or Interpol". According to its own information, 50 countries, airports and airlines already use the company's services (as of May 2021), which allegedly means that 80 …

Windward was founded in 2011 by two former members of the Israeli Navy. It specializes on AI-based analysis of data on shipping traffic. The startup received US$5 million from Israeli venture capital fund Aleph in a first round of funding in 2013. When the capital fund Horizon Ventures joined in 2015, the value of the still relatively small company was already estimated at US$ 100 million. With its databases and evaluation tools, it contributes to the implementation of trade sanctions against North Korea and the observation and classification of Iranian cargo ships, among other things.