foreign
Who is the real Victor Bout? What made him the most wanted man in the world until Osama bin Laden?
How did he build the largest criminal organization in history?
Why was his exchange for basketball player Brittney Griner controversial? Hello I'm Colin
Heaton former soldier, Marine Corps scout sniper, history professor, historian and book author and
we will answer these questions and other issues on this segment of Forgotten History [Music]
Bout was born 13 January 1967 location in dispute and was the world's largest arms
dealer along with legendary arms dealer Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi known for his lavish
business deals and lifestyle. Bout was a Soviet military weapons manufacturer and former Soviet
military translator and he used his multiple aircraft and export companies as fronts to
smuggle arms from Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East during the 1990s and early 2000s.
Boat graduated from the Russian Military Institute of Foreign Languages fluent in
several languages: Portuguese, English, French, Dari, Arabic, and Persian Farsi as well as
Esperanto which he learned at age 12 in the early 1980s as a member of the Dushanbe Esperanto Club.
Bout's personal website stated that he served in the Soviet Army as a translator holding
the rank of lieutenant. Bout's exact military and intelligence work is still clouded in mystery. He
apparently retired in 1991 after the Soviet Union dissolved with the rank of lieutenant colonel, but
his intelligence connections suggest that he also worked for the KGB and the GRU during his career.
Bout was involved with the Soviet and Cuban military operations in Angola in
the late 1980s assisting the People's Movement for Liberation of Angola (MPLA)
during the long-running Angolan Civil War. That conflict had been hot and heavy since the 1970s.
It was reported that both Bout and a former Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin of the
GRU where working in Mozambique in the 1980s supporting the communist Insurgency there but both
Sachin and Bout deny that connection despite the evidence of BoUts weapons being delivered there.
Bout was known to have flown shipments out of Bulgaria and the weapons destined for the use
in the Angolan Civil War by UNITA founded by Jonas Savimbi who was anti-communist and
the opposing faction of the MPLA which Bout had also aided during his military service.
In 1993 UNITA was covered under resolution 864 a United Nations Security Council
embargo prohibiting the importation of arms to Angola. Bout could have cared less.
In 1993 he began collaborating with Richard Chichakli, his safe zone for transports was the
Sharjah International Airport which he began using in 1995 in the United Arab Emirates.
During Bout's reported operations he is believed to have lived in various countries including
Belgium, Lebanon, Rwanda, Russia, South Africa, Syria, and United Arab Emirates among others. The UAE
hired Chichakli to be the commercial manager of its new free trade zone which Bout began using, and
Chichakli was at one time called Bout's financial manager by the United States who was tracking
his shipments. Bout sold to anyone regardless of politics. He was also reportedly working with
communist factions in southern Africa especially in South Africa and Rhodesia where he learned the
Xhosa and Zulu languages. After the collapse of the USSR Bout used his connections to purchase
surplus soviet-era military equipment including three Antonov AN-12 aircraft. He founded an
air freight business, Air Cess in Liberia in 1995. From 1989 to 1997 Bout was suspected of
supplying president and dictator Charles Taylor with arms for use in the First Liberian Civil
War, with eyewitnesses claiming that the two met personally on a few occasions. Ironically Air Cess
is the only company connected to Bout that has ever officially recognized him as the head. He
operated four of his Antonov A-8 planes in Angola as it was the only country to allow
the An-8 to be used in civilian freight at the time. Bout had been involved with arms deals during
the Yugoslav Wars especially with the Bosnian government forces during its uprising against
Slobodan Milosevic and his Serbian government in Yugoslavia. Hasan Cengic who was the deputy prime minister and
defense minister of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of Bout's in-country contacts.
The two knew each other since their days in Tehran, Iran during the 1980s and 1990s.
The Slobodna Bosna newspaper stated that Cengic was a business partner of Bout when 200,000
AK-47 rifles being transported by one of Bout's airlines went missing in transit from
Bosnia to Iraq in May 2006. Beginning in 1994 boots supported the pre-Taliban government of
Afghanistan which later became the Northern Alliance and he knew Ahmad Shah Massoud.
The Central Intelligence Agency may have been involved as to have plausible deniability
using Bout owned planes as transporters of small arms and ammunition into Afghanistan.
In 1995 Bout was involved in negotiations to free Russian hostages during the 1995 Airstan incident.
In 2000 boat was charged in the Central African Republic with forging documents
and was convicted in absentia for smuggling illegal weapons and transporting mercenaries
but the charges were later dropped. In November 2001 soon after the beginning of the
war in Afghanistan Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda reportedly moved gold and cash out of Afghanistan
using Bout's aircraft although he claimed he only worked with the Allied friendly Northern Alliance.
Bout's activities included allegedly delivering surface to air missiles to Islamic extremists in
Northeast Kenya near the Somali border which was under constant U.N scrutiny to be used to attack
an Israeli airliner during takeoff in 2002. In July 2003 the New York Times interviewed Bout
who stated that "I woke up after September 11 and I found I was second only to Osama
as the World's Most Wanted Man." Regardless of his Most Wanted status in 2004 Bout and Chichackli
reunited and allegedly set up Samar Airlines in Tajikistan to conduct money laundering activities.
This was another cover operation to protect their assets from international authorities
which was part of the indictment against him by the U.S Justice Department in 2010. Bout
is suspected of supplying weapons to numerous armed groups in Africa in the 2000s continuing
primarily in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Second Congo War
where he had as many as 300 employees and operated between 40 and 60 aircraft on a regular basis.
Bout's U.S assets were frozen in July 2004 under Executive Order 13348 which describes him as
a "businessman, dealer, and transporter of weapons and minerals," and cites his close association with
Charles Taylor, a wanted war criminal. This put a major financial strain on Bout's cash assets
which forced him to expand operations and make up the deficit. His new connections for hard
currency included supplying Hezbollah from 2005 to 2006 as they prepared for the Lebanon War as
well as providing missiles and explosives for attacks against Israel. During this period the
United Nations and the United States as well as European nations were sending billions of
dollars worth of building materials to rebuild homes and businesses that have been destroyed.
Boats aircraft were apparently used and smuggled aboard were the weapons violating the various
international embargoes. Of great interest in 2007 the Los Angeles Times reported that
the U.S government and its contractors paid Bout controlled firms roughly 60 million dollars to fly
supplies into Iraq in support of American forces. While being hunted records found in Tripoli after
the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi proved that in late September 2003 British intelligence officials
told then Libyan intelligence Chief Musa Kusa that Bout had set up a smuggling operation in Libya.
It was at this time that Bout became known as "The Merchant of Death" and "The Sanctions Buster"
after British Government Minister Peter Hain read a report to the United Nations in 2003 exposing
Bout's global arms smuggling operations, extensive clientele and ability to bypass embargoes. In early
2008 a U.S Drug Enforcement Administration paid informer claiming to represent the Colombian Rebel
group called The Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia (or FARC) negotiated with Bout for
the supply of 109 K-38 Igla surface-to-air missiles and armor-piercing rocket launchers.
These were to be parachuted into agreed drop zones in Colombia on a very tight schedule.
The undercover operatives invited Bout to Bangkok, Thailand to meet with their leader.
This was a ruse; at that time the U.S military was attacking the Colombian rebel group as well as the
cocaine producers alongside the Colombian military and DEA as part of "Plan Colombia."
Boat was arrested upon arrival and charged with terrorism offenses that included "conspiracy to
acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile conspiracy to provide material support or
resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to kill U.S nationals
and conspiracy to kill United States officers or employees." Boat was arrested and charged
with terrorism also by the Royal Thai Police in cooperation with American authorities and Interpol.
Bout was also charged with conspiracy to kill U.S citizens and officials in other countries
by using anti-aircraft missiles to shoot down aircraft at various locations yet to be
disclosed and also aiding additional terrorist organizations. The U.S Ambassador to Thailand
Eric G. John requested his extradition under the Extradition Act with Thailand, which was eventually
mandated by the Thai High Court in August 2010. After months of delays and red tape the criminal
court in Bangkok began an extradition hearing for Bout on 22 September 2008.
In February 2009 members of the United States Congress signed a letter to Attorney General Eric
Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing their wish that the Bout extraction
remain a top priority." However, Bout's luck held for a while. On 11 August 2009 the Bangkok
Criminal Court ruled in his favor denying the United States request for extradition and citing
the political not criminal nature of the case. The United States Department of State appealed
that ruling citing the criminal international actions and on 20 August 2010 a higher court in
Thailand ruled that Bout could be extradited to the United States. On 16 November 2010 the
Russian government filed a complaint against the extradition calling it illegal, but that argument
fell on deaf ears. Russia's foreign ministry took steps to prevent Bout being extradited to the
U.S. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov even suggested that Bout was innocent of all charges.
tThen in a stunning reversal on 18 November 2010 former Russian president Dimitri Medvedev's aide
Sergei Pridhodko said that "Russia had nothing to hide in Bout's criminal case," stating "...it is in
our interest that the investigation be brought to completion and Bout should answer all the
questions the American justice system has." On 2 November 2011 Bout was convicted by a jury at
the United States district court of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan. He was sentenced
to the minimum 25 years imprisonment on 18 January 2013. Russian government officials announced that
"...judges, investigators, justice ministry officials and special services agents who were involved in
Russian citizens Viktor Bout's and Konstantin Yaroshenko's legal prosecution and sentencing
to long-terms of imprisonment should be added to the list of U.S officials who will be denied
Russian entry visas." This was in response to the U.S Magnitsky Act under which certain Russian
officials are ineligible to enter the U.S. From 21 June 2012 until December 8, 2022 Bout was held at
the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. Victor Bout was exchanged for American basketball
player Brittney Griner on December 8, 2022. However former Marine Paul Whelan who has been in Russia
for four years was sentenced to 16 year years in 2020 on espionage charges, charges which seem
nefarious at best. The State Department protocol mandates that prisoners who are to be exchanged
should have one of three criteria, one being national security issues, the other being which
person has been held the longest and which person has health issues that may facilitate
an expediting of their release. Paul Whelan has been there for four years and has certain health
issues whereas Brittney Griner has been there less than a year and has no such impediments.
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