For two decades, Viktor Bout worked in the shadows, operating under at least seven aliases, with a handful of passports, dozens of shell companies and billions of dollars worth of contracts to supply massive quantities of arms and ammunition to conflicts around the world.
But for the past two years, as he sweated it out in an overcrowded Thai prison, the 43-year-old former KGB agent and arms dealer who inspired the 2005 Hollywood film Lord of War starring Nicolas Cage, has been the subject of an epic tug-of-war between the United States and Russia.
Washington, which regards Mr. Bout as “The Merchant of Death” responsible for fuelling some of the world’s most violent and destabilizing conflicts, wants him to stand trial in New York for conspiring to sell weapons to terrorists.
After years of unsuccessfully trying to put Mr. Bout out of business, U.S. and Thai undercover agents managed to trap him in a sting operation two years ago. Undercover agents posing as FARC guerrillas from Colombia enticed the Russian into negotiating to sell them hundreds of surface-to-air missiles and other arms.
[More]