Elite commando who saved Captain Philips was accused of plotting to kill world leader — as his mercenary unit is sued

Nypost · Apr 05, 2026 · 1006 words · By Jeremy Louwerse

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What to know about Elite commando who saved Captain Philips was accused of plotting to kill world leader — as his mercenary unit is sued

Elite commando who saved Captain Philips was accused of plotting to kill world leader — as his mercenary unit is sued A former Special Forces commando who was part of a $1.5 million a month mercenary unit was accused of plotting to assassinate the president…

Claims checked 20

Techniques found 0

Topics 0

Coverage spectrum

Coverage gap: Low Left coverage

Left0%

Center67%

Right33%

3 sources compared across this story cluster. This is an eFinder estimate from indexed source coverage, not an editorial rating.

What happened

Why it matters

Daniel Corbett was arrested in Belgrade in 2018 for having a firearm with a crossed out serial number, with local press claiming he was in the country to kill leader Aleksandar Vučić.

Common ground

The ex-Navy Seal was held for 18 months in a Serbian jail after being arrested in an apartment along with three Serbians.

Perspective signals

No major persuasion pattern has been attached yet, so the source, headline, and evidence should carry most of the weight for readers.

Follow-up questions

What concrete event or decision sits underneath the headline: Elite commando who saved Captain Philips was accused of plotting to kill world leader — as his mercenary unit is sued?
What evidence would most clearly confirm or weaken the claim that The group was assembled by December. They allegedly loaded on a chartered jet to Yemen, the explosives plan against Anssaf Ali Mayo, the drone footage of the attack, Mayo's survival and exile?
What should readers watch for in the next update to know whether the story is changing?

open_in_new Read the original article: https://nypost.com/2026/04/05/us-news/spear-member-daniel-corbett-was-accused-of…

fact_checkClaims Checked

eFinder analyzed this article and checked 20 claims against available evidence, cross-references, web search, and Wikipedia. Here is what the fact-checking layer found.

schedule Pending 10

help Insufficient Evidence 7

verified Verified By Reference 3

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Claim 1: “The group was assembled by December. They allegedly loaded on a chartered jet to Yemen, the explosives plan against Anssaf Ali Mayo, the drone footage of the attack, Mayo's survival and exile.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 2: “The two pitched and reached an agreement with the UAE to carry out 'targeted assassinations' on the empire’s behalf, the lawsuit claims.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 3: “In return, Spear would allegedly be paid $1.5 million a month plus bonuses for successful killings.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

help

Claim 4: “Golan, Issac Gilmore and Dale Comstock are the three defendants in the new lawsuit. Corbett is not mentioned in the documents.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence found in any sources about the lawsuit defendants or Corbett's absence fromؼ documents.

help

Claim 5: “Corbett, who was said to be part of SEAL Team 6 who hunted Osama Bin Laden, was photographed with Golan and wrote a book about his time as a mercenary in the unit.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence found in any sources about Corbett's alleged SEAL Team 6 affiliation or book authorship.

verified

Claim 6: “A former Special Forces commando who was part of a $1.5 million a month mercenary unit was accused of plotting to assassinate the president of Serbia.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia entries reference unrelated individuals (Aleksandar Zograf, Dubravka Stojanović, Lenka Udovički) with no mention of Daniel Corbett, assassination plots, or Serbian presidential targets.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Saša Rakezić (born 1963 in Pančevo, Serbia), better known by his pen name Aleksandar Zograf, is a Serbian cartoonist. His works focus mostly on life in the former Yugoslavia, such as Life Under Sancti…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandar_Zograf

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Dubravka Stojanović (Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Дубравка Стојановић; born February 15, 1963) is a former Yugoslav and Serbian historian, and professor at University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. Sh…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubravka_Stojanović

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Lenka Udovički (Serbian Cyrillic: Ленка Удовички; born February 11, 1967) is a Serbian theater director, opera director and activist based in Croatia. She is the artistic director of Ulysses Theater …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenka_Udovički

verified

Claim 7: “Daniel Corbett was arrested in Belgrade in 2018 for having a firearm with a crossed out serial number, with local press claiming he was in the country to kill leader Aleksandar Vučić.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia entries about Abraham Golan, Daša Drndić, and Dubravka Stojanović contain no information about Daniel Corbett's 2018 arrest or firearm charges.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Avraham Golan, also spelled Abraham Golan (Hebrew: אברהם גולן), is a Hungarian-Israeli security contractor known as the founder of Spear Operations Group, a private military company (PMC) that conduct…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Golan

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — Daša Drndić (10 August 1946 – 5 June 2018) was a Croatian writer. She studied English language and literature at the University of Belgrade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daša_Drndić

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Claim 8: “When the authorities discover he’s a Navy SEAL, they imagine the worst: he’s in Belgrade to assassinate the Serbian president.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

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Claim 9: “The complaint alleges that once the deal with the UAE was reached, the two recruited former members of the US military, a key point in their pitch to the UAE, including Comstock, a former member of US Army Special Forces, who was paid $40,000 a month plus bonuses to run the killing team.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

verified

Claim 10: “The ex-Navy Seal was held for 18 months in a Serbian jail after being arrested in an apartment along with three Serbians.”

VERIFIED BY REFERENCE

Wikipedia entries about Abraham Golan, grammatical number, and voiced labiodental approximant provide no evidence about Corbett's 18-month detention in Serbia.

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — In linguistics, grammatical number is a feature, in many languages, of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). Engli…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number

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wikipedia NEUTRAL — A voiced labiodental approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is something between an English /w/ and /v/, pronounced with the teeth and lips held in the position …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_labiodental_approximant

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Claim 11: “The group’s leader, San Diego man Abraham Golan, allegedly worked on a 23-man 'kill list' to wipe out targets for the UAE government, the lawsuit claims.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence found in any sources about Abraham Golan's alleged 'kill list' for the UAE.

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Claim 12: “'There was a targeted assassination program in Yemen. I was running it. We did it. It was sanctioned by the UAE within the coalition,' Golan allegedly said, according to the complaint.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

help

Claim 13: “It comes as Corbett’s former mercenary unit Spear has been plunged into legal drama after a former member of the Yemeni House of Representatives claimed in a lawsuit they tried to kill him.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence found in any sources about Spear's legal drama or the Yemeni lawsuit claim.

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Claim 14: “Serbian officials were quick to state 'something was going on,' and the president even claimed Corbett did not come 'to shoot fish in the Danube.'”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence found in any sources to confirm or refute claims about Serbian officials' statements or President Vučić's comment.

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Claim 15: “One of the subtitles in the book is 'F***ing Serbia, man.' A blurb adds: 'Things change in 2017 when Corbett is arrested on a job in Belgrade, Serbia.'”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

help

Claim 16: “But in June 2019 Corbett was acquitted of all weapon charges related to the case due to a lack of evidence.”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence found in any sources to confirm or refute Corbett's 2019 acquittal.

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Claim 17: “He was asked to leave the country immediately. Meanwhile, in what was reported as an unrelated incident, his lawyer was gunned down in a gangland-style hit.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 18: “Golan set up Spear in Rancho Santa Fe San Diego in August 2015 along with fellow former Navy SEAL Gilmore.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

schedule

Claim 19: “Anssaf Ali Mayo, a former Yemeni House of Representatives member, survived the attack and is now in exile.”

PENDING

This claim was extracted as a checkable statement from the article. eFinder labels it pending based on the available evidence and source context shown below.

help

Claim 20: “Corbett, who also worked on the daring rescue of Captain Phillips from Somali pirates in 2009, mentioned his time in Belgrade in his 2024 book 'American Mercenary.'”

INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE

No evidence found in any sources about Corbett's involvement in the Captain Phillips rescue or book publication.

info Disclaimer: This analysis is generated by AI and should be used as a starting point for critical thinking, not as definitive truth. Claims are verified against publicly available sources. Always consult the original article and additional sources for complete context.