The Pentagon is concerned that convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the “merchant of death” who was released Thursday in a prison swap for WNBA star Brittney Griner, could return to illegal arms trafficking, fueling conflicts. deadly all over the world.
“I think there’s concern that he’s going back to doing the same type of work that he’s done in the past,” said a senior Defense Department official.
Bout was serving a 25-year prison sentence in a US prison for various crimes, including conspiracy to kill Americans, when he was released. Griner was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on February 17 after Russian authorities said she had vape cartridges laced with cannabis oil inside her luggage.
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Convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout walks through temporary cells before a hearing at the Bangkok Criminal Court August 20, 2010. The Pentagon expressed concern about Bout returning to arms trafficking after being released in a trade of prisoners by Brittney Griner.
(CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP via Getty Images)
On August 4, he received a nine-year sentence after pleading guilty, arguing that he had been prescribed cannabis for his pain and inadvertently packed it up. Her sentence was confirmed in October and she was later transferred to a penal colony.
A former Soviet military man known as the “merchant of death,” Bout spent years supplying dictators and conflicts around the world with weapons, sometimes supplying both sides.
“If I didn’t do it, someone else would,” he told the New Yorker in 2012.
He did business with a fleet of cargo planes that transported weapons and military equipment to various parts of the world, including Africa, South America and the Middle East, according to a 2010 Justice Department indictment.
Many of the weapons he sold fueled civil wars in Africa. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor is believed to have been a client.
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WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner is escorted from a courtroom after a hearing, in Khimki, outside Moscow, Russia, on August 4, 2022. On Thursday, she was released to exchange for Viktor Bour, a convicted international arms dealer.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
In a statement, Sen. Bob Menendez, DN.J., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said there is no equivalence “between the Brittney Griners of the world and people like Viktor Bout.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth, and we cannot ignore that releasing Bout back into the world is a deeply disturbing decision,” he said. “We must stop inviting rogue, dictatorial regimes to use Americans abroad as bargaining chips, and we must work to encourage American citizens not to travel to places like Russia, where they are prime targets of such kinds. unlawful detention”.
Bout was caught in 2008 in a sting operation at a luxury hotel. in Bangkok, Thailandwhere he met with DEA informants posing as officials of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has been classified by US officials as a narcoterrorist group.
Prosecutors said Bout was prepared to provide the group with $20 million worth of “an impressive arsenal of weapons, including hundreds of surface-to-air missiles, machine guns, and sniper rifles, 10 million rounds of cartridges, and five tons of plastic explosives.”
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If Bout were to return to arms trafficking, particularly in Africa, the United States would warn its allies of the potential dangers of doing business with someone like him. Russia is also currently involved in its invasion of Ukraine.
“If their network and that came to fruition, we would definitely share the challenges of what we think illicit weapons or illegal weapons could mean to their prosperity and their ability to have a stabilized government and security response,” the official said. defense. he said.
