Viktor Bout, the man accused by Western governments of being the world's biggest arms dealer, has been held in a Bangkok jail since March, with the threat of extradition to the US hanging over his head.

After more than 15 years of allegedly running guns to African warlords and Islamic militants he was arrested in Thailand after an elaborate sting organized by US agents.

A former member of the Russian military, Mr Bout has always proclaimed his innocence.

He has been fighting to be returned to his native Russia, where he is widely thought to be the victim of American entrapment.

But Western governments, led by the US, are pressing the Thai authorities to extradite him to Washington where he will face charges of planning to supply arms to a terrorist organisation.

'Funding thugs'

Victor Bout emerged from the collapse of Communism in the early 1990s as the owner of an airfreight business with a reputation for flying almost anything anywhere.

He had, according to Western intelligence sources, a lucrative sideline in weapons bought from a cash-strapped Red Army.

By the late 1990s UN reports were documenting evidence of Mr Bout supplying arms to rebel forces in Sudan, Rwanda, the Congo, Angola and Sierra Leone, all in defiance of UN embargos.

Witney Schneidman, an Africa expert in the US State Department who tracked Mr Bout's activities, told the BBC that Mr Bout would often supply weapons to both sides of the same conflict.


I think there were a lot of people around the world that didn't have an immediate interest in taking Viktor Bout out of the equation
Gayle Smith
Center for American Progress

"In the architecture of war Viktor Bout was kind of like the glue", says Gayle Smith, who was Senior Director for African Affairs at the US National Security Council in the late 1990s.

"He moved people in and out (of countries), he moved money in and out, he moved arms in and out… and it didn't matter to him if he was funding predatory movements, if he was funding thugs, if he was facilitating rape and murder," she adds.

Often, she says, he was paid in so-called blood diamonds.

It was Peter Hain, then Africa minister at the UK Foreign Office, who publicly denounced Mr Bout in the House of Commons as a "Merchant of Death".

Farc members during a military practice in La Macarena, southern Colombia (file photo)
Mr Bout is alleged to have arranged delivery of weapons to Farc rebels

He said: "The more I read about Bout, the more intelligence and evidence that I saw, it was clear-cut, that he was a serious merchant of death right the way through the Great Lakes area, Angola and of course Sierra Leone."

Too useful

US officials say he also supplied arms to the Taleban in Afghanistan and the Farc guerrillas in Colombia.

Yet despite an Interpol warrant for his arrest and several attempts to detain him, Mr Bout repeatedly slipped through the net, including an attempt by British agents to arrest him in Athens.

"I was informed about it and it nearly happened but he wasn't on the plane, so that was terribly frustrating," Mr Hain recalls.


It was Weapons R Us - anything we needed he was willing to provide

Tom Pasquerallo, Head of the DEA's SE Asia Bureau

The ease with which Mr Bout managed to avoid the authorities may, according to some observers, have been partly due to the fact that he was simply too useful to too many people, including a number of Western governments.

In the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, Mr Bout flew supplies for the Americans into Baghdad. When this was exposed US officials claimed it was a mistake, but Mr Bout's company was one of the few willing to fly into a war zone.

His planes also flew from RAF stations in Britain to Kosovo. The Ministry of Defence later apologised, saying they had no knowledge the planes were linked to Mr Bout.

Viktor Bout in West Africa
Mr Bout is also accused of supplying arms to rebels in West Africa

"I think there were a lot of people around the world that didn't have an immediate interest in taking Viktor Bout out of the equation because he'd worked for a whole lot of people all over the earth," Gayle Smith says.

He became so notorious that his story inspired the 2005 Nicolas Cage film, Lord Of War.

But this very notoriety may also have been his undoing. A man who preferred to work in the shadows, he had become too public.

Soon after his "Hollywood debut" the US Treasury seized his cargo planes and froze his assets, which is said to have cost him some $6 billion (£4 billion).

Caught 'red-handed'

His capture earlier this year came after the US Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) was given the green light to pursue him.

Posing as members of the Colombian Farc, DEA agents set up a sting in the hope that he would agree to sell weapons to a group designated a "terrorist organisation" by Washington.

"I can tell you that almost everyone told us first of all we'd never pull this off, " DEA head of special operations Mike Braun says.

DEA agents held a series of meetings with Mr Bout's representative which started on the Caribbean island of Curacao in the Dutch Antilles, moving to Denmark and finally Romania.

Tom Pasquerallo talks to This World about Viktor Bout's arrest in Bangkok

It was hoped Mr Bout would come to Bucharest in person to sign an armaments deal that included Hinde helicopter gunships, drone aircraft and the latest surface-to-air missiles, worth, in all, around $15 million.

But, Mr Braun told the BBC, there was a hitch.

Mr Bout was prevented from entering the country by the Romanian authorities because of previous document violations.

In a last ditch attempt to salvage the operation Bangkok was suggested as an alternative. "The target was willing to travel to Thailand so… the decision became fairly easy," Mr Braun says.

At a hotel in central Bangkok Mr Bout finally provided the DEA with the evidence it needed.

"It was Weapons R Us. Anything we needed he was willing to provide," says Tom Pasquerallo, head of the DEA's SE Asia Bureau and the man who made the final arrest.

"It was business and it really didn't much matter if this was going to be used to kill Americans," he adds.

Five minutes later Mr Bout was arrested. Trapped, according to the DEA, by his own words.

This World: The Man Who Armed The World tells the full, exclusive story of how Viktor Bout was trapped by the DEA on Monday 17 November at 1900 GMT on BBC Two.

Let's boycott this bullsh!t

WHAT B.S. What are you crying about now yumnuk? What?

SANTO DOMINGO.- Two senior bishops are in favor of disarming the civilians, especially the criminals and called on the authorities and society to join forces to confront the crime wave that affects the country.

Monsignor Archbishop emeritus Juan Antonio Flores said it’s necessary to disarm the population, but admits that it’s necessary to disarm the thugs first.

He said the police needs professionalism, because if they aren’t educated excesses on the part of the authorities can be expected, killing innocent people or without a hearing, or trial. “We must have the Police with education, pay them well and not indiscriminately admit those who want to be in the police."

For Higuey Diocese bishop Nicanor Peña, crime in the country has increased mainly due to the family’s decomposition and the distribution and consumption of drugs, which he said has reached an incalculable dimension.

He also favors the population’s disarmament because it’s a cause of incidents that bring about deaths and deplored the arms in the hands of civilians and criminals. "I believe that the authorities must take exemplary measures before the robberies, crimes and assaults, because sometimes crimes are committed and people are not punished, as they should be punished.”

LATUARO YOUR MASTERS HAVE SPOKEN.....YOU KNOW THE DOMINICAN ORDER THE REAL OWNERS OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. AND YOU THOUGHT THAT THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC BELONG TO THE DOMINICAN PEOPLE SILLY YOU.... AND YOU THOUGHT THAT YOU WERE A DOMINICAN LIKE I ALWAYS SAY THERE ARE NO SUCH THINK AS A DOMINICAN NATION ON THE ISLAND OF HAITI THE WHOLE ISLAND IS FILLED WITH HAITIANS AND SOME OF THEM ARE PRETENDING TO BE DOMINICANS WHERE IN FACT THEY ARE NOTHING BUT HAITIANS . THE REAL DOMINICANS LIVES ON THE ISLAND OF DOMINICA AND NOT ON THE ISLAND OF HAITI.

SON what the hell are you talking about? Its no different when the Bishop/Cardinal or Pope here in the states speaks out against crime, abortion, war etc. We need this or we need that to be done for peace in God's name speech. Yes, the Vatican has saying power in the United States as well in DR, PR, and other Latin countries. Look man, sorry that your country is the way it is, but you guys brought it upon yourself. Lack of leadership and to much greed got your land and people in the situation your in but the Island is not yours, never was kid. For 22 years (which is nothing!!!!) rule DR with a brutal fist, that's it. Before that the Island had two different tribes from what I understand. The French made you who you are and Spain made us what we are. Different beliefs and different religion. YES, we have African ancestors on both side, no thanks(crime against Africans) to the slave trade. That's the only thing in common we have.....you guys mingled more with the Africans then we did and that is why you guys are darker then us. Yes there are a lot of Haitians in DR and that's our fault. We abused you guys for child and field labor and among other things. But remember, it was your Mothers and Fathers that were giving us your 10 or 12 year old daughters to wash my cloths, clean my house and so on for payments. We didn't exactly go and attack your tribe and lead you away in chains, didn't have to so its natural for there to be a large H community in DR you've been working on our side for so many years.

It's not like they were there from the begging like the Mexicans who still live on the land that are no longer theirs. example, TEXAS. Actually if you ask some one in Texas(Mexican) where are they are from they will answer you Texaian since many of them have never been to Mexico. Their family has always been in Texas. any way, I have worked with a few Haitians, and so has my father for many years. Great people and great working friends (never socialized outside of work) and I haven't met any one prouder then them about being Haitians but even they feel that a lot of your country man want DR just because you guys are to lazy and stupid to fix your own country, jealousy and greed and "payback" for what has happen to you. I admit that we have treated a lot of you like animals but the same time a lot times you guys have acted like animals. You seem to be an educated guy, a few of your brothers here on this forum seem that way also. Have you ever thought about going to Haiti and helping your people in rebuilding the country. Or is it easier to claim and Island for your people in the comfort of your American home?

Your hipocrisy is rich, because you pretend to love your people when in fact you´re only using them to suit your twisted ideas. For the actions of slime like you is that Haiti finds itself on its knees, because you Macoutes only love the haitian people "de la boca para fuera", but when they try to resist your attempts at tyrannizing them, then you resort to slaughtering them left and right, ever since Dessalines set you his malignant example (which would explain why the populace only waited two years before unceremoniously liquidating him, and old deranged woman called Defilee being the only one to ever mourn his passing).

On your present disparate I can only say that it´s the other way around, bossale, since your country is one in name only, because the state doesn´t control its territory (be it by land, air or water), and the economy (if it could be called such) has yet to hit rock bottom, and if you haven´t been looking around you, it´s currently invaded by foreign troops (Minustah). I have read (and heard) that the brazilian ones leading it are specially vicious on their treatment of the populace, cuz´ they´re applying the same brutal tactics that they use in quelling the favelas (ghettos) on Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. Why don´t you go and fight them? Are you scared of them? well, you should be, cuz if there´s something that the brazilian military is known for worldwide is for their brutally efficient ways in dealing with slave uprisings throughout history, which explains the reason why an haitian revolution could not happen on brazilian soil, despite that country having the same economic system that colonial Haiti had, ten times the slave population (being as it was the colony which received the majority of the african slaves that came to America during the Atlantic Slave Trade and afterwards) and a bigger territory from which the maroons could have engaged in a successful guerrilla war against the colonial regime. You have to be thankful that the dominican government has turned a blind eye to your exodus, cuz´if it closed the border even for a week you guys would be devouring each other out.

In short, if you think that the Vatican order owns the DR (an idiotic notion at its best, one can´t never be too surprised at the lenghts that you´re capable of going in your senility), then I can say without the shadow of a doubt that the brazilians own you and are treating you like their little bitches. During my current trip to Brazil, I had the luck of engaging in conversation with a brazilian lieutenant-colonel, and he couldn´t stop gloating about the nasty (but efficient) tactics that they have used time and again in dealing with your mobs, and the ones they will use in the future if the populace dared even to entertain for a second thoughts about rebellion. Your country is being used as the laboratory where the different security forces of the entire world are designing tactics to counter the increasingly restless nature of the world populace on the New Order, so you´re in no position to gloat so much about anything.

This is getting outta hand, how does a news about FAD ends up with the Haiti in the argument?

The reason for that, Abe, is that Dominicanation has put forth this news in order to mock us, cuz on every single post that he had ever done he hasn´t been able to stop from reminding us about the invincible hatred and envy that he holds for the DR and everything that it stands for. The funny thing about it is that, if we dominicans have nothing to pride ourselves for, in his estimation, then what could we say about his country? which in 204 years of existence has been unable to get a respite from all those civil wars and coup d'états that the elites are apparently so fond of. Don´t get me wrong, I have the deepest admiration and respect for the haitian people, it´s only that I hold an unconquerable contempt for their elite types like Dominicanation, people that say that they love their country when their own actions say otherwise.