Crescent Security Group

nuffsaid,
Yeah I seen the CSG guys on the road a few times, and to be honest, they were all descent blokes, this was back in 2005/6 though, like I said, the Rolling Stone article did them no favours....stay safe mate.
Glad to hear the families were paid out, I didn't think Steve Finaru's article ws too damning, I didn't like his choice of words...Mercenaries, I have issues with the use of that word to describe what we do in Iraq.
 
I apologize for this post not being very timely, however I just became aware of it. I worked for CSG. I am familiar with Franco as well as who his Kuwaiti partner is/was. I was with the company when Roger Smith was bumped out by Wolf Weiss. For what it's worth, Wolf was a good man, and a very competant, highly trained operator. The company durring the times I was there has a mix of "western" operators and Nepali Gurkha's...The company took a serious nose dive after Wolf was killed. Franco unfortunately put his faith into a person that was not qualified at all to direct the company's operations in the field (which was ultimately the reason I left the company). If anyone want's more info about the former Crescent Security Group please contact me.

One other note to add...I have personally seen the video of the incident that took Wolf's life. I would never second guess him but he was operating in a dangerous area in hours of darkness which was not a good idea to begin with. That being said, I'm sure he had his reasons and knew the risks.
 
As i know they don't operate anymore for some time and one guy from Crescent is working with me.He is a hell of a guy and a very good friend of mine.All what i know about Crescent he told me.That's all.

Guys stay safe!
 
The privite security didnt even have morphine, didnt have weapons untill crossing the border into iraq, and when it comes to their wepons. These guys got robbed of their weapons container and had to pay an iraqi 50k to buy new weapons. They checked the serial #'s and most of em came back as their own weapons. Buying your own weapons.??? and of coarse their was no briefings at all, with often cover ups. Also the kidnapping was set up by an employee, who was helped by fired iraqi pk gunners.
 
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Argyll,

Glad u were there when the bodies arrived ( including Withrow)of the Crescent Guys on the 3 occasions....I must have missed you..... the 5 Crescent families next of kin were paid USD 300,000 per person insured, as per policy


I am not going to get into a He said She said scenario but I was in Basra personally doing the legwork and arranging informants etc since 2006 Nov.I am still currently following up with this case inclusive of "others". Crescent closed the lot in Safwan after the US Military moved the crossing to AL Kubairi crossing, some 40Km's from the original Navstar...

I can appreciate that certains things done by the "director of Security" was not correct but I cannot stand back and listen to the crap that is percieved! Unfortunately or fortunately everything I have is documented and recorded. I have never beleived in heresay . To quote russian KGB " Make the lie as big as possible, people will believe it more". Is that not what Journalists do.......How many of the comments or perceptions stem from the article of WP...it is a bit like been a prostitute, the more you perform the more you get screwed.


Have you personaly ever seen Crescent whilst they were on a mission in Iraq?

I am not slamming the 5 brits or SA's 4 and rest assured I am sure that resolution is close by. I can only hope that they are returned to their families alive or in a better shape the Crescent 5 and Withrow were returned in!

Wish I would have read this thread a long time ago! Let me start by telling everyone that i was a CSG Operator. I hated this stupid company but needed the money and was trying to build experience to move to a legitimate company. With that said, let me tell you that Nuffsaid is definitely in the admin role for CSG. CSG did in fact have steroids and plenty of alcohol in Kuwait. LOL, it was not vitamins as described. I cannot even believe you said that by the way...lol Some of the CSG Operators had stash boxes in their vehicles and were bringing alcohol & other things, out of Iraq. I really could care less about the alcohol personally, but just saying. CSG had faulty equipment and no armour against IED's on their vehicles. The Ak's would not fire half the time and most of the PKM's were in pretty bad shape. Some of the Operators were having problems with the company not paying them as well. Operators were having problems with the Iraqi counterparts for several months prior to them kidnapping our own people. We tried to get Picco to hire Gurka's in their place long before this incident! We even told him and that arrogant scott that the Iraqi counterparts were about to f**k the company like they did. I am in contact with John Young and Paul Rueben's family and to date I have not heard of them receiving any money from CSG! I know nothing was paid the entire time the men were being held. I knew John Young, and the others, but I know John would have never left Wolf Den without security while pulling 20 vehicles! I know he would have called Operations and explained the situation and I'm quite sure Scott told them to roll. I personally would have made a U-turn and returned to Kuwait, but I was not there that day. Back to the issue, the WP article was spot on!! I read it and it is correct in every way. And just for the pure hell of it, let's talk about the book, "it's a bloody business". Half the shit in that book about CSG is BS! The pic where Scott, (the convicted burglar and domestic violence dude), is holding a pistol to the head of a "insurgent" lol, that is BS! The "insurgent" worked as an interpreter for CSG and the pic was staged...The information for the WP article came from CSG Operators! So believe the Operators, or CSG Admin personnel, you figure it out...Now, there were some good Operators working for that stupid company, just wanted to make that clear. We did have some cowboys out there, but most of them knew their shit. They just worked for the wrong company is all. RIP to my brothers and God Bless your families.
 
The-Wiz-Kid, you are right, we did not have morphine, nor did we have a medic to be honest! We were not allowed to have weapons in Kuwait, so there was no fix for that problem. Our weapons container was broken into by our Iraqi security teams! Our weapons container was guarded by two Iraqi's...lol Alrighty! Some of the teams did in fact do detailed briefings prior to movements though. A lot of the Operators were very soft targets, especially in the South! Complacent is a understatement!
 
Most of the articles about CSG came from that dumbass Scott. He wanted a spotlight on everything! I agree that the rolling stones article was over the top and didn't help operators in Iraq. A lot of CSG Operators were embarrassed by Scott quite often, but what could we do?? I know that anytime another company or military convoy was in trouble, we stopped to help. Or at least my team did.
 
As i know they don't operate anymore for some time and one guy from Crescent is working with me.He is a hell of a guy and a very good friend of mine.All what i know about Crescent he told me.That's all.

Guys stay safe!


If they still operating in Iraq then they are doing it illegally & under the radar as Crescent are not on the MOI approvaed Contractors list...
 
exCSGoperator

Last time I checked, Franco Picco and a small italian team were operating from Camp Midica or Tillil. Not sure of the spelling of either one of these bases...sorry! I'm not sure if they are still there or not though. They were still running a food contract with the Italians last i heard.
 
I apologize for this post not being very timely, however I just became aware of it. I worked for CSG. I am familiar with Franco as well as who his Kuwaiti partner is/was. I was with the company when Roger Smith was bumped out by Wolf Weiss. For what it's worth, Wolf was a good man, and a very competant, highly trained operator. The company durring the times I was there has a mix of "western" operators and Nepali Gurkha's...The company took a serious nose dive after Wolf was killed. Franco unfortunately put his faith into a person that was not qualified at all to direct the company's operations in the field (which was ultimately the reason I left the company). If anyone want's more info about the former Crescent Security Group please contact me.

One other note to add...I have personally seen the video of the incident that took Wolf's life. I would never second guess him but he was operating in a dangerous area in hours of darkness which was not a good idea to begin with. That being said, I'm sure he had his reasons and knew the risks.

PhoenixDelta, I remember you! You shot (ND) yourself in the leg, went back home with a wild war story played a Hero and used that story to get some kind of public office position in your town. And if I remember right you left because of personal issues with the Director, wasn't it due to the fact that he wouldn't let you go on any missions with a weapon? Not to mention none of the other operators would accept a mission with you due to your ND. As for anyone contacting PhoenixDelta regarding CSG, be advised he only has a few weeks with CSG and ask yourself why his only gig (short lived) was with CSG.
 
PhoenixDelta, I believe I hired on right after you left, not sure. I agree with you 100% on the video brother!
I know this is 11 years since this post so I just stumbled on this forum. However, I was a contributor to the WP article. I worked for CSG and hired on from KBR the same time as John Young did. If any May remember me, I was the older guy and a Vietnam vet. John came from a stationary security job in Kuwait and didn’t have much experience rolling in Iraq. Can’t remember if he was ex military but as I recall very inexperienced. Was rather surprised that he was made team leader shortly after I left. Scott was a jerk for sure and the operations guy (can’t remember his name) he was full of BS and incompetent. However, there were some good ex marines and a couple Italian guys that knew what they were doing. Overall, it was a risky outfit to work for as I figured out after about 4 months and decided to go back to the states. Dumbass Scott wouldn’t pay for my trip home so that was on me. John’s mother got in touch with asking for information about CSG and tried to help her out as best as I could. Never heard back from her and then found out John was killed. On another note, the reporter from WP never sent back to me fake ID’s CSG produced that I had sent him as he promised he would.
 
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