Who is Viktor Bout?
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27 March 2008: Who is Viktor Bout?
On 6 March 2008, Thailand’s Police Service announced that it had arrested one Viktor Bout at a luxury hotel in Bangkok. According to press reports, Mr Bout is alleged to have sold weapons to many countries and is suspected being one of the world's biggest illegal arms dealers. Although never prosecuted, he has also been accused of breaking UN embargoes on arms sales to countries in Asia and Africa. Lt Gen Pongpat Chayapan, head of the Thai Crime Suppressino Bureau, is quoted as stating that Bout was arrested while attempting to "procure weapons for Colombia's Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels".
But who is Viktor Bout and what are the allegations against him?
In March 2004, the Institute for Security Studies held a workshop on “Understanding and Regulating Arms Brokering in Southern Africa” at which two papers were presented that provided an overview of his alleged illicit activities. The papers were presented by Brian Wood of Amnesty International and Gail Wannenburg, then a researcher on organised crime with the South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA). What follows is a summary of their account of the life and times of Viktor Bout.
One of the most notorious alleged weapons dealers to Africa, Viktor Bout has been implicated in every one of the UN reports on sanctions-busting to rebels in Angola, Sierra Leone and the Liberian government. He has also been implicated in the UN Expert Panel reports on the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the DRC. He has been implicated in trafficking former Eastern bloc weaponry to 17 African countries as well as allegedly to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. Lee S. Wolosky, a former United States National Security Official, who was involved in an interagency operation to attempt to disrupt and close down Bout’s operation was quoted in a 2002 Washington Post article as saying that ‘There are a lot of people who can deliver arms to Africa or Afghanistan but you can count on one hand those who can deliver major weapons systems rapidly. Viktor Bout is at the top of that list.’
Viktor Bout was allegedly an interpreter in a military transport aviation regiment in Vitsebesk (Belarus) until 1991 when his unit was disbanded at the end of the Cold War. He operates under at least five aliases and owns a plethora of airline, cargo and freight forwarding companies, along with an estimated sixty aircraft that have been registered in Belgium, the United States, Liberia, South Africa, Swaziland, United Arab Emirates, Rwanda and the Central African Republic. When his companies are subjected to scrutiny he simply moves his operations elsewhere.
In 1991, Bout worked as a trade representative in Angola until he started operating an air cargo company, Air Cess, which he registered in Liberia and operated out of Ostend, Belgium. In 1993, Bout moved to the United Arab Emirates and re-registered Air Cess. He began to buy more aircraft, allegedly through middlemen based in the Urals. In 1995, Bout and Michel-Viktor Thomas established Trans Aviation Network, operating out of Ostend in Belgium and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Bout left Belgium after it was reported in the local media that he had sold 40 tons of weapons to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Abdul Latif, Bout’s contact in the Northern Alliance, confirmed that Bout assisted them with obtaining ammunition. Bout allegedly earned $50 million from weapons sales to the Taliban, via Pakistan, sales that were completed prior to UN sanctions. Operating with a power of attorney over Vial, a company registered in Delaware, Bout allegedly sold five planes to the Taliban and may have been linked to a further five sales through other companies, Flying Dolphin and Santa Cruz Imperial. American authorities believe that he may have continued to supply the Taliban after sanctions were imposed and that shipments may have included toxic chemicals.
In 1996, UN experts claimed that Bout was shipping arms from Bulgaria and Romania to Hutu forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), using Belgian registered aircraft. Action could not be taken because the operation was extra-territorial.
In 1997 he registered Air Pass in South Africa, operating with Norse Air and Pietersburg Aviations Services and Systems. Later that year he moved his operation to Swaziland. It is alleged that between 1997 and 1998 Bout’s companies supplied $14 million worth of light and heavy weaponry from Bulgaria (via Togo) to Angolan rebel group UNITA, which was under UN sanctions. General Jacinto Bandua of UNITA has confirmed that Bout was their main supplier. The aircraft were registered in Liberia.
Bout was said to be still operating through South Africa as late as March 2001 but using smaller front companies ostensibly owned by his former associates. In the same year, he registered Centrafrican Airlines in Equatorial Guinea. In 2002, the UN suggested that Bout operates two companies in the DRC but uses front companies to shield his activities. Air Cess is now run by his brother and also operates from Pakistan.
According to a 2003 Los Angeles Times article, Viktor Bout’s activities came to the notice of the United States as early as 1995 when they intercepted conversations that connected him with weapons shipments to the Great Lakes region. Before Bout could be charged with 146 breaches of civil aviation regulations in South Africa in 1998, he moved his operations to Swaziland. In Swaziland, authorities grounded 43 of his aircraft because of inadequate documentation but these aircraft reappeared in Bangui in the Central African Republic.
In 2000, aware of the lack of international and national instruments to prosecute Bout, the United States embarked on a campaign to disrupt his enterprise. The US and Britain tracked his shipments and tried to prevent him from buying weapons in Eastern Europe. South Africa was requested to charge Bout under its anti-mercenary legislation but there was insufficient evidence to make a case. After pressure from the United States, Bout and his brother were barred access to the United Arab Emirates, the location of their main operating base.
In a raid on eighteen homes in Brussels in February 2002 a number of associates of Bout, including diamond dealer Sanjivan Rurpah, were arrested. Information gathered led Belgium to issue an international warrant of arrest for Bout on money laundering charges. An attempt to arrest him on a commercial airline in Athens in late February 2002 failed.
John Peleman, a United Nations expert in illegal arms trading, has suggested that the failure to arrest Bout can be attributed to his influence in most countries in which he has operated. ‘I am not ruling out the possibility that one integral component of Bout’s business involved bribery of officials not only in Eastern Europe but everywhere his company was represented. …In general, his relationship with officials of all countries in which his company was registered - from Swaziland to Miami, in the United States- merits some detailed analysis.’
Perhaps now at last Bout will have his day in court to answer these and other questions.
Noel Stott, Senior Research Fellow: Arms Management Programme, ISS Tshwane (Pretoria)
