Former US Soldier Steven Shawlis Tied to RSF Air Supply Flights in Sudan

An investigative report uncovered that companies controlled by former U.S. special‑forces soldier Steven Shawlis operated a fleet of aging Boeing 727 and 737 aircraft to transport supplies for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The aircraft were moved from the United States and Brazil to African hubs, landing repeatedly at airports in Chad and at Niameh in Sudan’s Darfur region, where a Boeing 737 was destroyed by the Sudanese army in May 2025, killing 54 people, including a pilot and an engineer employed by Shawlis‑owned Oxdental Sport Services, a firm registered in the United Arab Emirates. Shawlis’s firm CADG, based in Singapore, has secured contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. government and United Nations agencies, though the UN says it had no knowledge of the RSF flights. The network also serviced logistics sites in Chad, Libya and Somalia, bypassing local aviation permits. The revelations have sparked diplomatic tension, with Chad denying any authorization for the flights and the UN distancing itself from the operations.