On June 17th, a horrific image began circulating on Facebook: a slew of dead dogs, 24 in all, massacred on the grounds of a US security company in Kuwait.
Former employees of this company, Eastern Securities, as well as US dog vendors and the Kuwaiti government whistleblower who posted the photo, exclusively tell the Post of longstanding abuse of dogs in ES’s care — as well as the recruitment of impoverished workers from third-world nations who are then held against their will, without passports, work visas or cell phones.
“They are a terrible, terrible company,” says Roger Abshire of USK9 Unlimited, which cut ties with Eastern Securities in 2008.
“I inspected and had people on top of this, and [Eastern Securities CEO Bill] Baisey didn’t like it,” Abshire says. “Handlers weren’t getting paid on time. They weren’t getting dog food on time.”
The dogs are CWDs — civilian working dogs, trained to detect explosives at oil refineries.
“Those dogs were mistreated,” says Amy Swope, an American who worked for Eastern Securities in Kuwait from July to November of 2014. “A lot of them were underfed, had eye and skin infections, lesions, bacterial infections, diarrhea, and cancerous growths. One dog had uterine cancer so bad I begged them to euthanize her.”
Swope says the company refused, and made the cancer-stricken dog work until she died. At the time, Eastern Securities was being paid $3,000 per dog, per month, by the Kuwaiti government. Other sources say that figure is much higher — up to $10,000 per dog, per month.
The company, Swope says, could never keep veterinarians on staff for very long, because they rarely paid anyone.
“I had two emergency cases that I took to a local vet,” Swope says. “They said, ‘We won’t treat these dogs; your company doesn’t pay.’ I ended up using petty cash.”
Swope says she confronted CEO Baisey — a man also known as Fathalla Balbeisi — once she learned that many of the low-level workers from India, Nepal, the Philippines and Uganda had their passports taken away and were stuck in Kuwait. Swope says she herself was never issued a work visa, which left her vulnerable in Kuwait.
“Some of these workers don’t have embassies,” Swope says. When she spoke with Baisey, she says he threatened her with prison.