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Viktor Bout
Russia
Viktor Bout is a former Soviet army officer whose name has become synonymous with arms dealing in the years since the end of the Cold War. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he made hundreds of millions of dollars trading arms (mostly to war-torn areas in sub-Saharan Africa) under the guise of various legitimate enterprises. Years of tacit indulgence from Western governments allowed him to amass a huge empire of contacts and resources, and when those same governments eventually declared him a fugitive, he used his empire to remain safe from capture. He remains at large to this day.
Bout was born to Russian parents in what is now Tajikistan, though official accounts very on the exact place. His early years are shrouded in mystery, but he joined the Soviet military shortly before the end of the Cold War. He trained in foreign languages (picking up half a dozen over the years), and likely became involved with the GRU (the military wing of the KGB) during his service. When the Soviet Union collapsed, he found himself highly skilled, but without a job…and with ready access to stockpiles of surplus military hardware. His contacts helped him acquire not just guns and other weapons, but the cargo planes to fly them-often left abandoned on the airfields for anyone to walk up and take. With those resources, he started the “Transavia Export Cargo” company. He initially flew guns into the worn-torn areas of Somalia, but soon expanded operations to include such African hotspots as Liberia and Sierra Leone. The weapons he sold helped escalate those conflicts into unspeakable bloodbaths.
Bout prospered in large part because of his ex-Soviet connections, which allowed him to obtain better and more numerous weapons than his competitors. Besides small arms, he could supply rocket launchers, high explosives, tanks, attack helicopters, and anti-aircraft systems. His fleet included numerous Antonov heavy cargo planes, which could ferry large amounts of equipment and land in places his competitors couldn’t. In a few short years, he had diversified his empire into a number of shell companies-mostly aviation-based-which allowed him to ship arms to anywhere in the world. He operated out of Bulgaria, Guinea, and the United Arab Emirates, focusing the bulk of his operation in Africa, but displaying a willingness to sell to anyone…even opposing sides of the same conflict. His list of clients included the Taliban (both before and during its rule of Afghanistan), Hezbollah, the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the Philippines, and a number of prominent African warlords.
He also worked for Western powers on occasion. During the war in Iraq, his companies reportedly flew into dangerous areas at the behest of the US and Britain. Doing so kept American and British servicemen out of harm’s way, while delivering weapons both governments considered vital to their cause. The United Nations, too, made use of Bout on occasion, though his activities flagrantly violated its arms embargoes in a number of global hotspots.
Interpol, the international law enforcement agency, formally indicted him for arms smuggling and money laundering in 2002, as did the nation of Belgium, which served as a nexus for his operations. In response, he fled back to Russia, whose Constitution protects its citizens from extradition. His operations have continued, however, and as recently as 2004, the US Government tried to keep him off of a UN sanctions list because of the work he did for US causes. To put it bluntly, Bout is a useful man. His services are in demand, he’ll work for whoever will pay him, and he’s very good at what he does. In 2008, he was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand by Royal Thai Police. The US demanded his extradition and it was eventually mandated in August 2010. Bout believed he would be acquitted for his charges by the United States but proven wrong. He was convicted by a US judge and sentenced in April 2012 to serve 25 years in the United States Penitentiary in Marion Illinois.
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 Posted by: Izan-Oen Tue Jan 21, 2014 @ 02:00am
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