Say Anything Blog

The use of sanctions and tracking terror supply networks is a tricky. In the international scene, arms dealers abound, perhaps none as infamous, wealthy and nefarious as Viktor Bout.

Known on both sides of the Atlantic as the “merchant of death,” Bout has been implicated in running guns and missiles to combatants across the world, from the Taliban and Northern Alliance in Afghanistan to the UNITA rebels of Angola and the teen-age army of Liberia’s former tyrant, Charles Taylor.

This image of Bout, one of the few in existence, was taken by a Belgian photographer secretly on an airstrip in the Congo. Bout is standing off to the left.

He has long been known to be able to supply any variety of technical arms, including planes and jets, anywhere in the world, provided there’s a buyer with money.

But now the Bush administration has hired at least one company tied to Bout’s network for the war effort in Iraq. Records obtained by Mother Jones show that as recently as August, Air Bas, a company tied to Bout and his associates, was flying charter missions under contract with the U.S. military in Iraq. Air Bas is overseen by Victor Bout’s brother, Serguei, and his long-time business manager, Richard Chichakli, an accountant living in Texas; in the past, payments for Air Bas have gone to a Kazakh company that the United Nations identifies as “a front for the leasing operations of Victor Bout’s aircraft.”

Chichakli has since bought a one way ticket to Moscow, after skipping bail in Texas, and has set himself up to take over operations in the event that Bout is unable to perform at his current capacities.

“The US Army and other defence agencies insisted they had no responsibility to scrutinize 2nd tier subcontractors. .... In April 2005 assistant treasury secretary for terrorist financing ... put economic sanctions against 20 of [Bout’s] companies and said no US businesses could deal with him. ... In Jan 2006, Irbis Air [one of Bout’s companies] bid on a contract with Halliburton in Iraq. ... Bout has saturated the Niger River delta in Africa with arms, causing the value of an AK-47 assault rifle there to drop from $250 to $70 over the last 18 months.”

-’The Merchant of Death’ by D. Farah & S. Braun from Foreign Policy Journal Nov-Dec 2006

In May 2006, when 200,000 AK-47 assault rifles went missing in transit from Bosnia to Iraq, one of Bout’s airlines was the carrier.

Personally, I think Bout is a very smart businessman. He is able to provide services like no other, elude capture, and even deal with the US Gov’t who is actively trying to capture him (yea right). I think the are lots of delightful anarchic cracks opening up with all the globalization and the repressed Hobbesian tactics of the current administration. It also strikes me as kind of funny that many people who rail against terrorist supply lines turn around and defend Halliburton’s bid fixing and subcontracting despite the fact that Halliburton hires people who willingly and knowingly supply terrorists.

His criminal profile in the public eye reached a high-water mark with the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Bout supplied weapons to the Taliban, which has close ties to al-Qaeda, which, presumably, orchestrated the attacks. This placed Bout on a top-priority list for U.S. officials.

Obviously!?!

...the power of these allegations brought Bout out of invisibility and into a Moscow radio station on February 28 for a live two-hour interview. An Inter-Fax news bulletin arrived during the interview and was read over the air:

"The Russian bureau of Interpol has announced that it has been seeking Victor Bout, suspected of having supplied weapons to the Al-Qa'ida organization, for four years. Spokesman Igor Tsiroulnikov declared: 'Today we can say with certainty that Victor Bout is not in Russian territory.'"

On March 4, the Russian Federal Security Service issued a short correction: "There is no reason to believe that this Russian citizen has committed any illegal actions."

With the end of the Cold War, single actors in the illegal arms trade have been less restricted by the ideology of their clientèle. Bout's air transport services are equally as lucrative as the illegal arms they often move - he has been known to supply arms to both sides of conflicts in which cease fires have been agreed upon... and then fly in international peace keepers to monitor the situation. Despite travel bans, Bout was reportedly recently spotted in Lebanon, no doubt selling his wares to less than savory individuals.