Convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as the Russian Dealer of Death, was traded Thursday for WNBA star Brittney Griner.
Bout, 55, has spent the last 12 years in federal prison in Marion, Illinois on arms trafficking charges and conspiring with terrorists to join Colombian FARC rebels in killing American civilians. He still had 13 years of his sentence left.
In the course of his eventful career, Bout has been accused of working with terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and groups in Pakistan, Iran and Somalia.
Bout’s exploits helped inspire the 2005 Hollywood film Lord of War, starring Nicholas Cage and loosely based on his life. In the film, Cage plays the role of Yuri Orlov.
Among Bout’s most notorious acts was the theft of $32 billion worth of weapons from Ukraine between 1992 and 1998.
In August, announced that Bout had become part of the negotiations to bring Griner home. The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the exchange, saying in a statement by Russian news outlets that the exchange took place in Abu-Dhabi and that Bout was flown home.
This combination of file images shows Brittney Griner awaiting sentencing in a defendant’s cage during a hearing in Khimki, outside Moscow, and Viktor Bout waiting in a criminal court detention center in Bangkok in 2008
During his career as an arms dealer, Bout became notorious for his willingness to arm almost anyone, from militias in Sierra Leone to Charles Taylor’s brutal Liberian regime to the Taliban.
A native of the city of Dushanbe in Soviet Tajikistan, Bout is said to be fluent in several languages and to have served in the Soviet Army as a military translator, including in Angola, a country that would be central to his later career.
He said he attended a Moscow language institute that serves as a training center for military intelligence officers.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he was able to capitalize on an oversupply of cheap Soviet-made weapons that could be sold to customers in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Operating out of the United Arab Emirates, he used a fleet of Soviet-era planes he founded at decommissioned air bases to supply arms to insurgents, warlords and rogue states around the world.
In a 2003 interview with The New York Times, Bout said, “I woke up after the 9/11 ad and realized I was only behind Osama.”
He continued: “My clients, the governments. I’ll keep my mouth shut.’ Bout continued, “If I told you everything, I would find the red hole right here,” he said, pointing to his forehead.
Bout’s exploits helped inspire the 2005 Hollywood film Lord of War, starring Nicholas Cage and loosely based on his life
Bout began life on the run in 2002 when Belgian law enforcement issued an arrest warrant for him. It is believed that he used fake passports to move under a variety of aliases. Bout finally surfaced in Russia in 2003.
The nickname Merchant of Death was coined by British Foreign Secretary Peter Hain, who said in 2003: “Bout is the leading merchant of Death, who is the main conduit for aircraft and supply routes carrying weapons… from Eastern Europe, mainly Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine.” to Liberia and Angola.”
Hain added, “The UN has exposed Bout as the center of a spider web of shady arms dealers, diamond brokers and other agents who perpetuate the wars.”
Bout was arrested in 2008 at a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand, after a covert operation by US agents who recorded him offering to sell rockets to what he believed to be left-wing Colombian guerrillas.
Between 2003 and 2008, Bout is said to have rarely left Moscow. It is believed that the US prank operation lured him away from his homeland.
In an interview with Channel 4 in the UK in 2009, Bout denied ever having worked with al-Qaeda but said he had flown weapons into Afghanistan to help forces fighting the Taliban.
Bout said in the same appearance that he helped UN peacekeepers in Rwanda in the 1990s, bringing supplies to the genocide-torn country.
After his arrest, then-Attorney General Eric Holder called him “one of the most prolific arms dealers in the world.” Although the arrest angered the Kremlin. In 2010 he was extradited to the United States.
In court, Bout protested his innocence. A jury heard that when told by a terrorist organization that his weapons were being used to kill American pilots, he replied, “We had the same enemy.”
In 1992 he married his wife Alla, they are still together. His wife said during the trial that her husband’s only connection to Colombia was through “tango lessons.”
In 2012, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison by a US court on multiple charges related to his career as an arms dealer. He was then 45 years old. Russia has always maintained its innocence, called his case a gross injustice, and sought his release.
That same year, Bout was appointed an aide to Liberian President Charles Taylor and accused of aiding and abetting war crimes committed during the civil war in Sierra Leone.
According to the 2017 book Operation Relentless by Damien Lewis, Bout’s mantra was never empty. When his planes landed on remote, gun-crammed runways, he wanted them to be crammed with something else when they took off.
The book goes on to say that arms dealing wasn’t really what Bout wanted to do. As an avid amateur filmmaker, his real passion was to make wildlife documentaries for the Discovery Channel.
In describing his arrest, the book says that Bout remained remarkably calm — unlike his tough Russian bodyguard, who cried because the handcuffs injured his wrists.
Biden’s approval to release a Russian criminal once nicknamed the “Merchant of Death” underscored the escalating pressure his administration was facing to bring Griner home.