Who is Viktor Bout aka ‘Merchant of Death’

• Viktor Bout is a convicted Russian arms dealer aka “Merchant of Death”.
• The Kremlin has long advocated for Bout’s release.
• The Biden administration offered Bout in exchange for Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan.

Former Soviet military commander Viktor Bout is currently serving a 25-year jail sentence in the United States on allegations of plotting to kill Americans, acquiring and exporting anti-aircraft missiles, and providing material support to a terrorist group.

The fate of two American Americans held in Russia may be determined by the release of Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms dealer known as the “Merchant of Death.”

Bout has insisted that he is innocent.

The Kremlin has long advocated for Bout’s release, calling his 2012 sentence “baseless and prejudiced.”

According to those aware of the situation, the Biden administration offered Bout in exchange for American basketball star Brittney Griner and former US Marine Paul Whelan.

Griner testified in a Russian court on the same day as part of her ongoing trial on drug accusations stemming from her February arrest at a Moscow airport. Whelan was arrested in 2018 on suspicion of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in jail in a trial that US officials deemed unjust.

Their relatives have asked the White House to secure their release, even if it means a prisoner exchange. Bout, a guy who has evaded international arrest warrants and asset freezes for years, is now at the core of that bid.

The Russian businessman, who knows six languages, was apprehended in 2008 in Thailand during a sting operation coordinated by US narcotics enforcement officers acting as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. After a lengthy judicial process, he was eventually extradited to the United States in 2010.

When Bout was convicted in New York in 2012, Preet Bharara, the US attorney in Manhattan, remarked, “Viktor Bout has been international arms trafficking enemy number one for many years, arming some of the most violent conflicts around the globe,”

“He was finally brought to justice in an American court for agreeing to provide a staggering number of military-grade weapons to an avowed terrorist organization committed to killing.”

Since the 1990s, Bout has been accused of assembling a fleet of cargo jets to transport military-grade weapons to conflict zones around the world, fueling violent conflicts ranging from Liberia to Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.

Bout claimed to have served as a military officer in Mozambique.

He initially came to public attention when the United Nations began investigating him in the early-to-mid 1990s and the US became engaged.

Bout, who has reputedly gone by the aliases “Victor Anatoliyevich Bout,” “Victor But,” “Viktor Butt,” “Viktor Bulakin,” and “Vadim Markovich Aminov,” is supposed to be the inspiration for Nicolas Cage’s character in the 2005 film “Lord of War.”

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