ISN Security Watch has a great two part series on the real Lord of War, notorious international arms dealer Victor Bout.
Bout was arrested in Bangkok in March 2008 and is on remand awaiting trial.
He first came to my attention when contacts at SEESAC told me about the scale and ruthlessness of his operation.
Wikipedia has a good introduction:
Viktor Anatolyevich Bout (Russian: Виктор Анатольевич Бут) (born January 13, 1967 near Dushanbe, Tajik SSR, Soviet Union) is a Russian former GRU major and arms dealer. Bout is suspected of supplying arms to the Taliban and Al Qaeda and of supplying huge arms shipments into various civil wars in Africa with his own private air fleet. Nicknamed “the Merchant of Death”, he is the subject of a book by that name written by Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun. According to Lee S. Wolosky, he is “the most powerful player in the trafficking of illegal arms.”
Recent reports suggest he is also operating in Iraq using front companies and Cargo Airlifts (Airline Transport, Air West, Aerocom and TransAvia Export). Bout came to officials’ attention in the 1990s, when he was accused of supplying arms to rebels in West Africa after a cease-fire agreement had been brokered. At that time he owned or was using many airlines, including Air Cess and Centrafrican, which were later forced to shut down by authorities. He also supplied arms to the deposed regime of Charles Taylor in Liberia.
In May 2006, when 200,000 AK-47 assault rifles allegedly went missing in transit from Bosnia to Iraq, one of Bout’s airlines was the carrier. Bout’s business partner is Hasan Čengić, the former Deputy Prime Minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to Slobodna Bosna and Douglas Farah. Bout was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand on March 6, 2008, five days after the Colombian government found the computer of FARC’s (Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia) leader alias “Raul Reyes” in a long term camp site in Ecuador . - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Bout
Bout’s arrest is actually a serious worry to many governments, not least of which the US government, with whom he has done business. You can read all about this character at ISN Security Watch - “The deadly convenience of Victor Bout” Part 1 and Part 2 .
Also see his official website: http://www.victorbout.com/
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