Border Profiteers

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.

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 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 .

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.