September 18, 2024

Aposurvey

Its My Destination

I’m a Former Navy SEAL and a Security Advisor for VIP Vacations

  • Mike (not his serious name), 40, is a previous Navy SEAL who supplies protection for clients’ holidays.
  • His team inspects ports and yachts, finds safe dining places, and operates background checks on staff.
  • This is what his work is like, as instructed to freelance author Claire Turrell.

Mike spoke on problem of anonymity more than privateness worries. His id has been confirmed by Insider. 

I applied to move US Special Forces troops all over Iraq and Afghanistan. As a Navy SEAL, I was awarded Bronze Star Medal in Iraq and a Bronze Star with V for Valor in Afghanistan. Now I move abundant households about the entire world on getaway.

The idea for the Servius Team came immediately after my cofounder Ethan (not his authentic name) was on family vacation with a wealthy family members at the Monaco Yacht Present. The relatives and other friends would vacation between yachts in a little boat, and he was stunned when 1 of the friends revealed he was carrying $1 million in cash in his bag. 

In summertime 2020, Ethan and I decided to launch a organization that would arrange holidays with Unique Forces-educated safety. Our workforce is made up of  ex-Special Forces staff, this sort of as former Navy SEALs, Rangers, and Marines. Each crew member has finished 10 to 12 fight excursions, so they are masters of threat mitigation. We are also multilingual — I individually converse English, French, and Farsi. 

We get started working for clients a thirty day period just before they journey.

Servius Group will join guests on chartered yachts or are hired to protect onboard art collections. Credit Azimut/Embark Beyond.

Servius generally joins attendees on chartered yachts to protect onboard artwork collections and valuables.

Azimut/Embark Further than


We verify routes, uncover English-speaking doctors, and see in which the closest US embassy and law enforcement stations are found. We send an state-of-the-art workforce to the desired destination and make guaranteed their picked cafe is not in a seedy component of town. We look for the purple flags. 

We also vet workers doing the job in venues and track private jets. And if a VIP household is enjoying a coastal or lake holiday break, and their adolescents are employing jet skis or vehicles, we tag the motor vehicles and track them for the mom and dad. We also give cyber security for lender accounts and our client’s identity. 

When we travel, we glimpse like a member of the spouse and children. 

We don’t have on satisfies or earpieces. Although our services are costly, we can make our clients’ travel insurance policies less costly. When you’re coming into a channel acknowledged for piracy on a $200,000 holiday vacation, it helps to have ex-Particular Forces staff on board. We safeguard the family, but we can also secure the yacht’s contents — some of our client’s yachts have multi-million-dollar artwork collections on board. 

Our initial clientele arrived by phrase of mouth, and we now perform with luxurious journey advisors Embark Further than to assistance their VIP visitors. 

Whilst some of our customers just want to take it easy on the seaside, other individuals want to have a lifetime-switching experience.

Safaris are popular with Servius's guests. Credit Singita/Embark Beyond

Safaris are well-known with Servius’ attendees.

Singita/Embark Outside of


We have a consumer who enjoys scuba diving for three months at a time. We dived with him in French Polynesia exactly where it truly is frequent to see humpback whales and manta rays. Safari is also seriously preferred with our guests — we’ve been to the Ivory Coast, Mozambique, and South Africa. We have even joined clients on chartered yachts to the South Pole. 

We not too long ago furnished security for a bachelor bash that was held on a yacht in Miami. The adult men wanted to expend the day on the boat cruising close to and stop by some clubs at night time. And no, we didn’t leave any individual at the rear of. 

If they want to trek to Everest Foundation Camp, as just one of our customers did a short while ago, we’ll 1st make a baseline evaluation of their bodily skills to know that they can meet up with the physical needs of the journey. 

If we have a guest who has never ever skydived before, we will hook them up with a Exclusive Forces instructor. And if it’s your initial-time scuba diving, our ex-Navy SEALs will be subsequent to you with a security line. But if it is skiing, it would be much more pleasurable for the client if they book expert lessons. Are you likely to discover an ex-Particular Forces particular person on the nursery slope? No. 

The career only gets demanding for us when unforeseen visitors be part of the bash, but we’re employed to working with previous-moment requests.

As former Exclusive Forces, we’re properly trained for extractions. We the moment experienced a customer who located themselves in a unsafe and susceptible scenario, so they contacted us and requested for an extraction. We bought them out of that locale, collected their valuables from somewhere else in the earth, and took them both to a safe place.

So considerably, there is certainly only been a person request we could not take, which was to take 15 guys to South The united states with 24 hours’ see. The government explained it was as well quick of a observe for visa approval. 

We check out to help our clientele as much as possible, but there are two items we won’t do: We will not likely help purchase medicine and we won’t be photographed. 

Our attendees could retain the services of a ski guide or scuba diving teacher to be a part of them on their journeys, but they want to listen to our tales. A ski information may perhaps be an pro, but he is never deployed in battle or sat in at a tribal meeting in Afghanistan.