|
Saturday, March 08, 2008 - 2:14 PM
Russian businessman Viktor Bout was arrested by Thai police in a U.S. sting operation after years of slipping past accusations that he operated an arms-trafficking network that fueled wars from Africa to the Balkans to Asia.
Thai security officers escort alleged arms dealer Viktor Bout following his arrest yesterday on charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
http://louis-j-sheehan.net/
http://louis-j-sheehan.net/page1.aspx
http://louis-j-sheehan.info/page1.aspx
http://louis-j-sheehan.info/
http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/page1.aspx
http://louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us/
Agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration had been trying for nearly a year to lure Mr. Bout into showing up to finalize a fictitious $5 million deal to deliver a cache of guns and surface-to-air missiles to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas, or FARC, according to U.S. officials.
Mr. Bout, 41 years old, was arrested in Thailand yesterday along with an associate, Andrew Smulian, on charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, http://louis-j-sheehan.org/
according to court documents unsealed by federal prosecutors in New York's Southern District. U.S. authorities said they planned to seek the men's extradition to the U.S.
Mr. Bout said in the past that he was unaware of any illegal content in cargo shipped by his operations, and he has repeatedly denied his companies did anything but legitimate business. He said on Russian television in 2006 that he had http://louis1j1sheehan1esquire.us/page1.aspx
given up the air-transport business because of arms-trading allegations.
Some Conversations Recorded
U.S. authorities said paid informants negotiated the FARC deal in meetings, email and telephone conversations in locations including the Dutch island territory of Curaçao, Denmark and Romania. With the help of local police, the DEA recorded some of the conversations conducted via cellphones secretly provided by U.S. authorities and email addresses set up for the sting.
One of the informants had worked with Mr. Bout in the mid-1990s, including in an aborted operation in which Mr. Bout allegedly wanted the informant to fly on an arms drop in Chechnya, according to the court documents.
Mr. Bout was caught in a trap similar to the one U.S. drug agents used last year to catch reputed arms smuggler Monzer al-Kassar. Mr. Kassar, who is Syrian, is being held in Spain. U.S. authorities have requested extradition.
A DEA official said an undercover agent infiltrated Mr. Bout's inner circle and a close aide persuaded Mr. Bout to proceed with the putative FARC deal. "It was a realistic scenario that convinced him that he could go forward," the official said.
Mr. Bout has been sought since 2002 on an Interpol warrant for alleged money laundering after he drew attention for what the United http://louis1j1sheehan1esquire.us/
Nations said was his role funneling arms that fueled conflicts involving Liberian dictator Charles Taylor, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and the genocidal conflict in Rwanda.
Through a series of companies registered in the Middle East, the U.S. and elsewhere, Mr. Bout ran one of the largest private-aircraft fleets, mostly huge Soviet-era cargo planes. A U.S. Treasury report said he had a reputation in the smuggling world for being able to deliver anything, anywhere, anytime.
"Viktor Bout provided the means with which barbaric regimes and murderous warlords have been able to carry out their horrendous acts," said Alex Yearsley, of human-rights group Global Witness, which has tracked Mr. Bout's alleged role in trading arms for so-called conflict diamonds in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola and Congo. "For years, he was delivering cargoes of death."
U.S. claims of his willingness to do business with the FARC rebels come as Colombia is in a standoff with Ecuador and Venezuela over a Colombian military raid on a rebel camp just inside Ecuadorian territory last week.
It was in Africa that Mr. Bout's planes gained profile throughout much of the 1990s. According to the U.N., the planes carried weapons to anyone who would pay, in conflicts across the continent.
Alex Vines, a former U.N. arms inspector whose investigations contributed to many of the U.N.'s accusations, said that in Angola's civil war, Mr. Bout supplied weapons to both the government and rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, or Unita. http://louis-j-sheehan.org/page1.aspx
http://louis-j-sheehan.com/
"He was a very pragmatic fellow," said Mr. Vines, who is now head of the African program at Chatham House, a think tank in London. Mr. Vines said he saw Mr. Bout's planes and evidence of their fraudulent registrations, but never Mr. Bout himself.
Those who have tracked Mr. Bout for years were surprised at the apparent carelessness that helped the U.S. sting succeed. U.S. Treasury officials have placed sanctions on Mr. Bout's companies and on his associates in recent years, and they have frozen some of his assets. A November email U.S. prosecutors say was from Mr. Smulian hints that those sanctions may have been having an effect. "Our man has been made persona non-G[rata] -- for the world through the UN....All assets cash and kind frozen, total value is around 6 Bn USD, and of course no ability to journey anywhere other than home territories."
So extensive was Mr. Bout's network that U.S. military officials said in 2005 that they had contracted with companies that used Mr. Bout's cargo companies to ferry materials for the military and its contractors to Iraq, following the U.S. invasion. U.S. officials said they weren't aware beforehand that Mr. Bout's companies were involved. His companies also have shown up carrying humanitarian aid for the U.N. in Africa.
Mr. Bout is a colorful figure who rarely showed himself in public, and he is believed to have inspired the 2005 film "Lord of War."
In 2006, he appeared on a Russian government-run television channel to dismiss allegations against him. Investigators from the U.S. and U.N., he said, had conflated him into an international bogeyman of gun-running. "Every time, it's the same story, the same repetition," he told English-language program Russia Today. "I can even call it a witch hunt."
Mr. Bout said he had given up the air-transport business because of the accusations against him. He told the Russian channel that he had seen the Hollywood film in which Nicholas Cage plays a morally bereft arms dealer believed to be modeled on Mr. Bout and that it was "a bad movie." http://louis-j-sheehan.com/page1.aspx
He added: "I'm sorry for Nicholas Cage."
Others note that while Mr. Bout's arrest could be significant, it's just a step.
"Viktor Bout is not the only person accused of trafficking arms in violation of U.N. embargoes," said Brian Wood, http://louis-j-sheehan.biz/page1.aspx
http://louis-j-sheehan.biz
who analyzes arms and security issues at Amnesty International in London. "He's most certainly a businessman in a chain." http://louis-j-sheehan.biz/
http://louis-j-sheehan.us/Blog/blog.aspx
|