Infamous arms dealer Viktor Bout is reportedly back to his old ways less than two years after his release from U.S. custody in a prisoner swap for WNBA star Brittney Griner.
The Wall Street Journal reported that, when emissaries from Yemen’s militant Houthi movement visited Moscow in August to negotiate a $10 million arms purchase, they encountered the man known as Vladimir Putin’s “Merchant of Death.”
The polyglot former Soviet intelligence officer turned to arms dealing after the Cold War, buying up enough surplus Soviet-era military equipment to seed his gun-running into a global enterprise that brought in hundreds of millions in revenue by selling to militant groups in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
His alleged former clients include terrorist group al Qaeda and the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), as well as Western governments. He won the moniker “Sanctions Buster” for his ability to get around restrictive trade measures and his story even inspired a middling 2005 Nicolas Cage movie, for which a sequel is in the works (mercifully, Cage did not try to put on a Russian accent).
One of the world’s most wanted men, Bout was arrested in 2008 in Thailand in a sting by the Royal Thai Police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In 2012, he was convicted in a Manhattan federal court of trafficking arms to terrorists and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Citing a European security official and others familiar with the August meeting in Moscow, the Journal reported that the Houthis’ arms purchase is a relatively small one, consisting of automatic weapons including AK-74s that could begin delivery as early as this month under the guise of food shipments.
However, the Houthi members who visited Moscow also inquired about other weapons Russia would be willing to sell, including anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft weapons, the Journal’s sources said, noting that there’s no evidence Bout would be involved in those deals.
Nevertheless, even the smallest shipment will raise ire in Washington, as the Iran-backed Houthis were put back on a U.S. list of “global terrorist” groups in January.
That followed dozens of attacks by the group on merchant and commercial ships in the Red Sea, which the Houthis say is in protest of the Israel–Hamas war, in which the U.S. government has sent billions in arms to the Israeli Defense Forces.
The Houthis also recently claimed responsibility for attempted drone attacks on Israeli cities that were thwarted by Israel’s air defenses.
Russia, the Journal noted, has limited its involvement in the Middle East conflict, and arming one of the belligerent parties would constitute a notable escalation.
Bout, who said he kept a picture of Putin in his prison cell and is a fervent supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, was elected to a seat in a local legislature last year.
After his release from U.S. custody, he expressed sympathy for Griner, who was sentenced to nine years in a labor camp by Russian authorities for cannabis oil cartridges found in her luggage, in what was seen as a deliberately harsh punishment.
“Of course, I feel, you know, bad or sorry for any person who’s going to be used as a pawn, despite whether they committed something or not,” Bout told ESPN, following his 2022 release in the prisoner swap for Griner.
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