TheMerchant ofdeath Russian entrepreneur Viktor Bout has made millions as the world’s most efficient postman, able to deliver any kind of cargo—especially illicit weapons—anywhere in the world. How was he able to build his intricate underground network? By exploiting cracks in the anarchy of globalization. | By Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun n many ways, Viktor Bout is a prototypical, to get goods—usually illicit goods—to market. He’s modern-day, multinational entrepreneur. He a wanted man, desired by those who require a small is smart, savvy, and ambitious. He’s good military arsenal and pursued by law enforcement with numbers, speaks several languages, and agencies who want to bring him down. Globe-trotting knows how to seize opportunities when they arise. weapons merchants have long flooded the Third IAccording to those who’ve met him, he’s polite, pro- World with AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades, and fessional, and unassuming. Bout has no known his- warehouses of bullets and landmines. But unlike his tory of violence, and no political agenda. He loves his rivals, who tend to carve out small regional territories, family. He’s fed the poor. And through his hard work, Bout’s planes have dropped off his tell-tale military- he’s become extraordinarily wealthy. During the past green crates from jungle landing strips in the Congo decade, Bout’s business acumen has earned him hun- to bleak hillside runways in Afghanistan. He has dreds of millions of dollars. What, exactly, does he do? developed a worldwide network of logistics, maneu- Former colleagues describe him as a postman, able to vering through a maze of brokers, transportation deliver any package virtually anywhere in the world. companies, financiers, and weapons manufacturers— Not yet 40 years old, the Russian national also both illicit and legitimate—to deliver everything from happens to be the world’s most notorious arms fresh-cut flowers, frozen poultry, and U.N. peace- trafficker. He, more than almost anyone else, has keepers to assault rifles and surface-to-air missiles succeeded in exploiting the anarchy of globalization across four continents. His client list for weapons is long. In the 1990s, Douglas Farah, a former Washington Post foreign corre- Bout was a friend and supplier to the legendary Ahmed FP spondent, is a terror finance consultant and author of Blood Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance in from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror (New Afghanistan, while simultaneously selling weapons York: Broadway Books, 2004). Stephen Braun is a national and aircraft to the Taliban, Massoud’s enemy. His correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. The authors are fleet flew for the government of Angola, as well as for writing a book about Viktor Bout, which will be published the unita rebels seeking to overthrow it. He sent an ILLUSTRATION BY ROB DAY FOR BY ROB DAY ILLUSTRATION in 2007. aircraft to rescue Mobutu Sese Seko, the ailing and cor- November | December 2006 39 [ The Merchant of Death ] rupt ruler of Zaire, even though he had supplied the Yet Bout has managed to elude authorities over and rebels who were closing in on Mobutu’s last strong- over again. Laws simply do not address transnational, hold. He has catered to Charles Taylor of Liberia, the nonstate actors such as Bout. His most egregious ille- Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and Libyan gal acts have included multiple violations of U.N. arms strongman Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. embargos, a crime for which there is no penalty and for Bout’s customers are not exclusively corrupt Third- which there is no enforcement mechanism. Today, World leaders. He built his fortune by flying tons of Bout lives openly in Moscow, protected by a Russian legitimate cargo, too. These included countless trips for government unconcerned by the international outcry the United Nations into the same areas where he sup- that surrounds him and his business empire. plied the weapons that sparked the humanitarian crises in the first place. He’s done business with West- ern governments, including the United States. Over the INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY past several years, the U.S. Treasury Department has Much of Viktor Bout’s early history is either tried to put Bout out of business by freezing his assets unknown or of his own making. He is married and and imposing other sanctions on him, his business has at least one daughter; that much is true. His associates, and his companies. But the Pentagon and older brother Sergei works for him. But any other its contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan have simulta- personal information is clouded in mystery. Even neously paid him millions of dollars to fly hundreds his place of birth is unclear. According to his offi- of missions in support of post-war reconstruction in cial Russian passport, Bout was born on Jan. 13, both countries. In an age when the U.S. president has 1967, in the faded Soviet outpost of Dushanbe, divided the world into those who are with the United Tajikistan. But during a 2002 radio interview in States and those who are against it, Bout is both. Moscow, Bout said he was born near the Caspian International officials believe that Bout’s business Sea in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. A 2001 South practices—in particular, his refusal to discriminate African intelligence report lists him as Ukrainian. among those who are willing to pay the right price— He is known to carry more than one passport and are, in fact, illegal. Peter Hain, then the British For- use an array of aliases, including Vadim S. Aminov, eign Office minister responsible for Africa, stood in Victor Anatoliyevitsch Bout, Victor S. Bulakin, Parliament in 2000 to lash out against those violat- and the sardonic favorite of his American pur- ing U.N. arms sanctions. He singled out Bout, dub- suers, Victor Butt. bing him Africa’s “merchant of death.” But Bout’s The deliberate obfuscation has made it diffi- deals often fall into a legal gray area that global cult to track Bout, his partners, and his business. He says he was an Air Force officer and has acknowledged graduating from the prestigious Soviet Mili- Viktor Bout is a wanted man, desired by those who tary Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow in the late 1980s. He require a small military arsenal and pursued by law reportedly speaks fluent English, French, Portuguese, Uzbek, and enforcement agencies who want to bring him down. several African languages. U.N. officials say he worked as a trans- lator for peacekeepers in Angola jurisprudence has simply failed to proscribe. It’s not in the late 1980s. Several reports tie him to Russ- for lack of trying. His peripatetic aircraft appear in ian organized crime. Although British and South little-noticed U.N. reports documenting arms embar- African intelligence reports say that Bout was sta- go violations in Liberia, the Democratic Republic of tioned in Rome with the kgb from 1985 to 1989, the Congo, Angola, and Sierra Leone. U.S. spy satel- he has strenuously denied any intelligence back- lites have photographed his airplanes loading crates ground. But military language school was a known of weapons on remote airstrips in Africa. American training ground for the gru (or Main Intelligence and British intelligence officials have eavesdropped on Directorate)—the vast, secretive, Soviet military his telephone conversations. Interpol has issued a intelligence network that oversaw the Cold War “red notice,” requesting his arrest on Belgian weapons flow of Russian arms to revolutionary movements trafficking and money-laundering charges. and communist client states in the Third World. 40 Foreign Policy Up in arms: One of the only known photographs of Viktor Bout, left, was taken with a zoom lens in central Africa. Whether or not he was a secret agent, by the time compounds, making loading easy. Guards were often the Cold War ended, Bout had struck out on his own unpaid and their commanders were willing to sell the and was ready to salvage the remaining scraps of the weapons for a fraction of the market value. This avail- Soviet empire. The entire Soviet Air Force was on life ability of weapons was married to an instant clientele support, as money for maintenance and fuel evap- of former Soviet clients, unstable governments, dicta- orated. Thousands of pilots and crew members were tors, warlords, and guerilla armies clamoring for suddenly unemployed. Hundreds of lumbering old steady supplies across Africa, Asia, and Latin Ameri- Antonov and Ilyushin cargo planes sat abandoned ca. “He had a logistics network, the best in the world,” at airports and military bases from St. Petersburg to says Lee S. Wolosky, a former staff member at the Vladivostok, their tires frayed and their worn frames National Security Council (nsc) who led the United patched with sheet metal and duct tape. States’ interagency efforts to track Bout in the late Moving quickly, Bout acquired cargo planes des- 1990s. “There are a lot of people who can deliver arms tined for the junkyard. By his own account, Bout, to Africa or Afghanistan, but you can count on one then 25, bought his first trio of old Antonovs for hand those who can deliver major weapons systems $120,000, hiring crews to fly cargo on a maiden rapidly. Viktor Bout is at the top of that list.” flight to Denmark, then on longer-distance routes to By the late 1990s, Bout had perfected his modus Africa and the Middle East. But his business and operandi—the ability to move his aircraft ahead of gov- financial associates tell a different version. “The ernment efforts to ground them.