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'Merchant of Death' arrested in Thailand (Lord Of War Pt. 2)
This is the kind of renegade Russians I fear which steal and illegally obtain weaponry from all over former Soviet Union and then it ends up in the wrong hands ... I saw the movie Lord Of War, which I quite liked. I think this story might have a similar ending too ...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/serv...tional/America/
'Merchant of Death' arrested in Thailand
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It took a coalition of forces to take down the global gunrunner, whose empire was toppled by a U.S. sting operation
The elusive global gunrunner dubbed the Merchant of Death has finally been captured.
Viktor Bout, originally from Russia, was arrested yesterday at a five-star hotel in Bangkok. Thought to be a former Russian spy, something he denies, he is said to speak six languages and hold as many passports. He has long been known to global intelligence services for dispatching transport aircraft brimming with weaponry to anyone willing to pay, from Afghanistan to the former Zaire.
Mr. Bout's legendary network is said to have once incorporated hundreds of employees as his Rolodex grew fat with the names of some of the world's best-known dictators, warlords, and terrorists. Yet he wasn't arrested until yesterday, when U.S. officials launched an extradition case alleging he negotiated to parachute dozens of surface-to-air missiles to leftist guerrillas in the jungles of Colombia.
Officials say their sting caught Mr. Bout having discussions with men he believed to be members of the Colombian rebel group known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, but who were actually undercover U.S. agents. Those alleged negotiations, starting in November, may have unravelled a global enterprise that was years in the making, one forged as Mr. Bout earned a reputation as the go-to-guy for weapons-hungry warlords in countless global conflicts.
The suspect's deadly wares are said to have landed in just about every corner of the world. His personality helped inspire the 2005 Nicolas Cage movie, Lord of War. And while the scope of the alleged deals would test anyone's knowledge of geography and geopolitics, their guiding principle was simple: "Buy low, sell high."
Mr. Bout has boasted he started young, a 25-year-old in Russia who managed to acquire three beat-up Antonov aircraft at post-Soviet fire-sale prices. During the 1990s, he was using them to run guns to a range of Africa's bloodiest conflicts. On the return runs, he loaded up his planes with gladiolas, purchased for $2 apiece in South Africa, and few them to Dubai where they sold for $100 each.
But gunrunning was always the more attractive deal. An intercepted e-mail, revealed yesterday in the U.S. indictment against Mr. Bout, suggests his arms-sales profits were in the billions.
To Mr. Bout, it was all just business.
"Look, killing isn't about weapons. It's about the people who use them," he told The New York Times Magazine in an August, 2004, interview. Described as the man whose network was "The McDonald's of arms trafficking," he added that to him, "arms is no different than pharmaceuticals."
The reporter who interviewed Mr. Bout for that article said yesterday that he anticipates the arrest will backfire. "He has a lot to say that will be deeply damaging to the way the world operates," said Peter Landesman, who spent 10 days in Moscow with the suspect in 2004.
He said Mr. Bout recently got in touch with him to discuss a possible tell-all book. The writer added that just about every Western government, including the United States, was complicit in Mr. Bout's deals at some point or another. "He's doing our dirty work for us," Mr. Landesman said. "Who do you think his customers are? Where do you think he got these weapons? That he just pulled them down off trees?"
The indictment seeks Mr. Bout's extradition to the United States on charges that he and an accomplice lent material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Intercepted e-mails and conversations with paid informants will be a big part of the case.
Among the stranger revelations is that, in the world of illicit arms trading, there is no such thing as bad press. The indictment alleges that Mr. Bout, working through intermediaries, sent clients magazine articles about his notoriety, stored on computer memory sticks. A co-accused, Andrew Smulian, is a go-between who is said to have openly referred to Mr. Bout as "the Merchant of Death," the title of a 2005 book about his exploits.
"Our man has been made persona non-G for the world through the UN," reads one e-mail Mr. Smulian allegedly sent to an informant, according to the criminal complaint.
"All assets cash and kind frozen, total value is around 6 Bn USD," the e-mail continued. It added that Mr. Bout's movements were highly constrained and communications monitored.
Even so, it took the combined efforts of U.S., Thai, Romanian, Dutch and Danish agencies to arrest Mr. Bout yesterday. And it's doubtful the investigation would have gotten very far if not for another shadowy figure: A "confidential source" identified only as CS-1, is said to have run guns to Africa and Chechnya with both suspects as early as the mid-1990s, before going to work for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
This winter, CS-1 apparently revived the relationship by presenting himself as an intermediary for the FARC, which, according to the charge sheets, is the "the world's largest supplier of cocaine." The purported FARC agents said they needed SAMS, rocket launchers and, down the road, combat helicopters.
It's alleged the two suspects sought a $5-million delivery fee for the initial arms deal, which was to be sealed at the Bangkok hotel where the arrests were executed yesterday.
The scope of the indictment - a U.S. document alleging an arms deal for South America brokered through various European and Asian locations - gives the reader a sense of how any given arms deal might cross a host of continents.
What it doesn't reveal is a completely rounded picture of Mr. Bout. According to Mr. Landesman's New York Times Magazine article, the Merchant of Death is actually a vegetarian whose real ambition remains travelling to the Arctic to become a wildlife photographer.
The merchant's dealings
In 2004, New York Times Magazine reporter Peter Landesman spent 10 days with Viktor Bout in Moscow, describing his enterprise as the "McDonald's of arms trafficking." Here are some of Mr. Bout's activities over the years.
WEAPONS FLIGHTS
Mr. Bout's first known weapons flights were to Afghanistan's Northern Alliance in 1992. Three years later, a MiG fighter jet, flown by the Taliban, intercepted a hulking freighter leased by Mr. Bout for delivery of several million rounds of ammunition to the government in Kabul.
TALIBAN DEALINGS
Starting in 1998, according to aircraft registration documents found in Kabul by Afghan officials, Mr. Bout's operation and allied air firms based in Sharjah, UAE, sold the Taliban military a fleet of cargo planes that was used to haul tonnes of arms and materiel into Afghanistan. Western officials estimate the Taliban paid Mr. Bout more than $50-million during the years it ruled Afghanistan.
REBEL GROUPS
UN investigators discovered that from July of 1997 to October of 1998, Mr. Bout's airplanes flew 37 flights from Burgas, Bulgaria, to Lomé, Togo, with weapons destined for the UNITA rebels in Angola. The cargo included:
20,000 82 mm mortar bombs
6,300 anti-tank rockets
790 AK-47s
1,000 rocket launchers
15 million rounds of ammunition
The total value of the shipments was estimated at $14-million.
LIBERIA
A Kenyan diamond trader is reported to have told U.S. officials that former Liberian president Charles Taylor asked Mr. Bout for an "emergency delivery of weapons" in the late 1990s as his country fell apart, a deal that may have grown to incorporate helicopter gunships.
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Whenever you go and buy something, you are affecting someone somewhere, be it environment, a person, or a community - you're making a statement with what you buy. So make it a smart choice ... Its a big picture
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right, he's the victim
