Victor Bout
 Victor Bout      (Arms dealer) | |
|---|---|
 Victor Bout in Bangkok jail | |
| Born | Viktor Anatolyevich Bout 1967-01-13 Dushanbe, Tajik SSR, Soviet Union |
| Interest of | CIA |
Victor Bout is an ex-Russian Army translator, turned businessman who was accused of arms smuggling by the US.
In 2008, Bout was lured to Bangkok by his business partner-turned DEA collaborator Andrew Smulian and arrested during a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting operation. [1] He was eventually extradited to the US where, on 5 April in 2012, he was jailed for 25 years for allegedly attempting to sell air defense missiles and other weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Bout denied all charges, insisting that he only ran an air transportation company. He further claimed that he was unlawfully prosecuted merely because he had refused “to cooperate with the US secret services” and the allegations against him were brought about due to the “unfair competition from the Western companies, controlled by the CIA.” [2] His lawyers also argued that the government’s star witness was British-born businessman Andrew Smulian who became a DEA informant and got a five-year sentence in the same case. Bout’s 2017 appeal for a retrial was denied. [3]
Related Document
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:Dimitri Khalezov Interview | interview | 14 October 2010 | Daniel Estulin Dimitri Khalezov | Daniel Estulin probes the startling claims of Dimitri Khalezov - an ex-Soviet army nuclear weapons specialist - about the events of 9-11 and the then pending extradition of his colleague Victor Bout from Thailand to the USA on arms trafficking charges |
