Who is Viktor Bout really? Brief biography of Victor Bout. The Case of Viktor Bout

The biography of Victor Bout, a former Air Force officer, inspired Hollywood actors to create the film, as a result, he was followed by a formidable nickname - the death trader.

Arrest and extradition

In 2010, Viktor Bout (pictured below in the article) was extradited to the United States from Thailand after a point operation of the US anti-drug agency. DEA employees pretended to be the buyers representing the FARC - the armed forces of the Colombian revolutionaries. The United States classifies this group as a terrorist organization.

Booth argued that he was just an entrepreneur engaged in legitimate international transport, mistakenly accused of trying to arm the South American insurgents and became a victim of American political machinations.

But the jury in New York did not believe in his story.

Who is Viktor Bout really?

In April 2012, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to kill civil servants and US citizens, in the supply of anti-aircraft missiles and in the complicity of a terrorist organization.

During the three-week trial, it was stated that Booth knew that the weapons would be used to kill American pilots cooperating with the Colombian authorities. To this he replied that they had one enemy.

Russian citizen Viktor Bout (photo shown in the article) began his business career in the air transport field after the collapse of the USSR in 1991.

According to the 2007 book Death Trader, written by security experts Douglas Farah and Stephen Brown, Booth built his business using military aircraft left on the airfields of a disintegrating Soviet empire.

Strong "Antonov" and "Ilyushins" were sold together with the crews and were ideally suited for the delivery of goods, as they could use the bumpy runways of the countries in which the military operations were conducted.

Victor Anatolievich Booth: biography

Booth was born in Soviet Tajikistan allegedly on 13.01.1967, although the exact date and place of his birth are unknown. For example, South Africa's intelligence attributed to him the Ukrainian origin.

After serving in the Soviet Army, he graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. On the personal website of the owner of the airline it is stated that he worked as a military interpreter and resigned from the Armed Forces in the rank of lieutenant colonel. But Viktor Bout's biography is not so unambiguous. According to other sources, he rose to the rank of major of the GRU and in the 80s of the last century participated in Soviet military operations in Angola.

Contrary to international sanctions, through a number of shell companies, he began to supply weapons to the war-torn regions of Africa.

UN accusations

Victor Bout, whose biography is closely related to the former leader of Liberia, Charles Taylor, who committed war crimes, was charged by the United Nations. According to UN statements, he was a businessman, seller and carrier of minerals and weapons, supporting the Taylor regime in order to destabilize Sierra Leone and illegally obtain diamonds.

According to media reports in the Middle East, he supplied arms for the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Bout was also charged with arming both sides of the civil conflict in Angola and selling weapons to warlords and governments from the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Sudan and Libya.

On the run

Booth himself categorically denied his connection with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. However, he admitted that in the mid-1990s, weapons were transported to Afghanistan, claiming that it was used by commanders to fight the Taliban.

He also claimed that he helped the French government transport cargo to Rwanda after the genocide, and also transported UN peacekeepers.

But the law enforcement authorities persecuted him throughout the 2000s.

In 2002, when the authorities issued a warrant for his arrest, Victor was forced to leave his home in Belgium.

Under various pseudonyms, Booth traveled through the United Arab Emirates and South Africa and again appeared in Russia in 2003.

In the same year, British Foreign Secretary Peter Hein came up with a well-known nickname for him. After reading the Bout report, he said that he is the leading death trader, the main mediator in the supply of arms from Eastern Europe - Moldova, Ukraine and Bulgaria - to Angola and Liberia.

The United Nations called Bout the central figure in the web of shadow arms dealers, diamond brokers and other warmongers.

Lessons of Tango

Throughout the 2000s, the US took steps against Bout, freezing his assets in 2006, but there was no law under which he could be prosecuted in the United States.

Instead, American agents waited until 2008, they called themselves buyers from Colombian rebels and were presented to the death merchant through one of his former comrades-in-arms. Soon after the DEA staff discussed secret arms shipments with him, the Thai authorities seized Bout and after a lengthy trial began the extradition process in the United States.

Booth said that the actions of the United States against him are politically motivated, and his wife said that her husband's only connection with Colombia is tango lessons.

The Russian authorities supported the death trader. The Foreign Minister promised to fight for his return to Russia, calling the Thai court's decision "unfair and political."

In the finale of the 2005 film "The Lord of War," in whose script the biography of Victor Bout is used, the anti-hero escapes justice. But in life "happy end" slipped away from the gun baron.

Sentence

The death trader was found guilty on 02.11.11, and on 05.04.12 he was sentenced to a minimum term of 25 years imprisonment - on charges of conspiring to sell arms to terrorist groups. The prosecutors demanded life imprisonment, arguing that the illegal circulation of Bout's weapons fueled conflicts around the world.

In response, the Russian authorities in 2013 brought US citizens who investigated the case of Viktor Bout and drug trafficker Konstantin Yaroshenko, to the list of persons who are prohibited from entering the Russian Federation. They include: former federal prosecutor Michael Garcia, his deputies Anjan Sahni, Brendan McGwire, Christian Everdell, Jenna Dabs, Judge Jed Rakoff and investigators Michael Rosensaft and Christopher Lavigne.

Biography of Victor Bout is described in Douglas Far and Stephen Brown's book The Death Trader: Money, Weapons, Aircraft and the organizer of wars (2007). But there are no words that the death dealer told the New Yorker journalist: "They will try to plant me for life, but I will return to Russia." I do not know when, but I'm still young, your empire will collapse and I'll get out of here " .