- Viktor Bout is a Russian arms dealer.
- He was arrested in 2008.
- He was released in exchange for Brittney Griner, who was jailed in Russia on drug-related charges.
Victor fight was released to Russia under a prisoner exchange agreement Brittney Griner on Thursday 8 December. president Joe Biden announced the 32-year-old WNBA player would be returning home, and it was reported that the administration had negotiated her release in exchange for the 55-year-old arms dealer The Associated Press. The President announced that Brittney was on a plane back to the United States after being arrested on drug charges in February.
In a news conference announcing Brittney’s release, Biden did not address the fact that the US secured her freedom by exchanging bout. Despite the deal, the President admitted that the administration could not attract another American Paul Whelans Release from Russia. “Unfortunately, Russia is treating Paul’s case differently than Brittney’s for totally illegitimate reasons, and while we have not yet succeeded in securing Paul’s release, we are not giving up. We won’t give up,” he said. Here you can find out everything you need to know about the arms dealer.
Bout is an arms dealer nicknamed “The Dealer of Death”.
Bout has long been a wanted gun dealer for illegally distributing guns around the world. He would take surplus arms to countries in Africa, South America and the Middle East. During his time as a trader, he used various aliases and passports to travel seamlessly. He was given his infamous nickname “The Merchant of Death” by the British Foreign Secretary in 2003 Peter Hain, Per BBC. He was also the subject of a 2007 book titled his nickname.
He was in the Russian military and started selling guns illegally in the 1990s
Bout has denied that he was an arms dealer, and his now defunct website revealed that he was a lieutenant-translator in the Soviet Union Army before he started selling weapons. He is believed to have started trading a surplus aircraft in Africa in 1993 after proposing to join the “active reserves”. The economist. He rose to prominence after reportedly working with a now-convicted warlord CharlesTaylor in arming revolutionaries.
He was arrested in 2008
After many years of traveling the world selling guns, Bout was arrested in a US covert operation in 2008. He was lured into a Bangkok hotel conference room to negotiate an arms deal with two people he assumed were from the Colombian rebel group FARC but were DEA agents from the US. He was arrested and tried in a Thai court and extradited to the States in 2010.
In 2011 he was found guilty in the United States
When Bout was sent to the United States, he was charged with conspiracy to kill Americans, as well as conspiracy to use anti-aircraft missiles, wire fraud, money laundering, and illegally buying an airplane. He was found guilty in 2011 and sentenced to 25 years in prison the following year. Bout denied the crimes on his website. Prosecutors focused on his time supplying arms to the FARC, per CNN. “Viktor Bout has been the number one international enemy in the arms trade for many years, arming some of the most violent conflicts around the world,” the US Attorney said Preet Bharara said then. “He was eventually tried in an American court for agreeing to supply a prodigious array of military-grade weapons to a professed terrorist organization dedicated to killing Americans.”
Bout has been portrayed in films and television shows
Bout’s story, as well as accounts of his arrest, have appeared in various media outlets over the years. The documentary series Damian Lewis: Spy Wars and Manhunt: Kill or capture Both have bout-focused episodes. The 2005 movie Lord of War was supposedly inspired by Bout. The film starred Nicholas Cage He plays an arms dealer “dealing with the morals of his job while being pursued by an INTERPOL agent.” IMDB.
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