Ready to hear about a real life Kaiser Soze? A man who has nearly single handedly supplied the majority of weapons for most conflicts, worldwide, since the fall of the Soviet Union. A man who has worked for The U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. State Department, and FedEx among others-as recently as 2006. A man who is an International fugitive wanted by numerous governments, the U.N., and Interpol. Yet, the U.S. Government still employs him and, possibly, helps him evade prosecution??...
Viktor Vasilevich Bout was born on January 13, 1967 in Tajikistan to Russian parents. Although, even this is disputed. As with all cunning super-villains, little is known about Bout before his military career. He is known simply as "Viktor B" by International investigators, because he goes by so many different aliases. Regardless, we do know that he graduated from the Institute for Military Interpreters in Moscow in 1991 and is said to be fluent in six languages. He held several positions in the Soviet military before being stationed in Angola as a translator. His KGB career would be short-lived however, as the collapse of the Soviet Union left Bout unemployed. This would also be short-lived...
After leaving the KGB in 1993 Bout founded an "air transport service", Transavia Export Cargo, in Belarus. It was during this time he utilized some of the contacts he had made while in the Soviet military. He began acquiring planes destined for the scrap heap, including a trio of old Antonovs, Soviet-made cargo planes that could carry upward of 20 tons—for $40,000 apiece. According to Bout associates, his senior contacts in the GRU(the secretive Soviet military intelligence network) were critical for his start-up. He then began supplying weapons which aided Belgian soldiers in Somalia. The Belgians were not his only customers at this point in time however. Another of his early customers was the Islamic State of Afghanistan, whom later became known as the Northern Alliance(remember them? our "allies" in Afghanistan). It is estimated that between late 1992 and 1995, Bout had supplied $50 million+ in arms to various Afghan warlords. Chump change by no means. In 1995 Bout founded the "Trans Aviation Network Group", in the Belgian city of Oostende, and continued to supply the Islamic State of Afghanistan with weapons. That is, until the Taliban overthrew the government in Kabul, and drove the remaining members to a few Northern provinces...oh snap! Now they suddenly become known as the Northern Alliance(witty huh?). In May of 1995 the Taliban intercepted one of Bout's shipments to the Northern Alliance, capturing plane and crew. Russian diplomats tried for several months to procure the release of the men and plane, to no avail. Then, out of the blue, in August of 1996, the men "escaped" captivity and flew out of Afghanistan in their plane...and Bout had a new arms customer. The Taliban.
Ok. Where are you going with this, you say? Stay with me...
After several years of living a luxurious lifestyle in Belgium, in 1997 the Belgian press began reporting on Bout's shady dealings. Under the pressure of an investigation by the Belgian authorities, Bout decided to set-up shop in the United Arab Emirates. This would become his "main base of operations". This same year he founded "Air Cess", which would later become synonymous with his dark deals. Air Cess was based in Equatorial Guinea, and registered in Liberia(and had headquarters in Miami, Florida until 9/11). Air Cess would go on to supply arms to nearly every conflict around the Continent of Africa-continuing until present day. He personally supplied weapons, more often than not, to both sides of conflicts in Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland and Uganda...to name a few. Viktor Bout had established himself as the "Pablo Escobar" of the gun trafficking industry. He hired unemployed soldiers of Russia's eviscerated air force and arms industry, building a loyal outfit of about 350 employees which included daredevil pilots, ground crews adept at keeping the decaying planes aloft(his fleet, which grew to nearly 60 aircraft by 2000, often carried legitimate wares such as flowers and fish), weapons suppliers, financial advisers, and even a gem expert who flew along on African sorties to inspect the blood diamonds Bout was sometimes paid with. Bout, by this point, was notoriously known for delivering weapons anywhere, anytime, and to anyone willing to pay. Of course, like all criminals, you can't do business forever without attracting attention. By the late 1990's Bout was on the radar of International authorities for his arms deals from Africa to Columbia to Lebanon, and anyplace in between with enough cash to afford his services.
During the last years of the Clinton White House, factions inside the CIA and the NSC were both well aware that Bout's air fleet and global infrastructure rivaled those of many NATO nations—and wanted him targeted for arrest. But, the effort fizzled out in the first months of the Bush administration. In an effort to underscore the urgency to apprehend Bout, Lee Wolosky, who was the top NSC official leading the effort to nab Bout, briefed Condoleezza Rice's national security team in the summer of 2001. They then scheduled a pre–presidential briefing meeting for September 11, 2001. Needless to say, apprehending Viktor Bout was pushed to the proverbial back burner. That is until associates of his approached the U.S. Government with an offer they couldn't refuse...
Here's were it gets very interesting(in a fucked up, shady kind of way)...
Only days after the attacks of September 11th, associates of Bout's were meeting with U.S. intelligence officials. These agencies were interested enough to allow Bout to fly to the United States on at least two occasions for face-to-face discussions of his sales pitch. One month later Bout made three flights to Afghanistan. The cargo? U.S. Special Forces and CIA operatives. Michael Scheuer, former head of the NSC's Bin Laden unit, made this comment concerning the event, "Bout could not have done what he did without the help of Princes, Kings, and Presidents". I couldn't agree more, sir. But, as it turns out, these three flights were only the beginning of a budding relationship between the U.S. Government and Viktor Bout. Bout began providing weapons, helicopters, trucks and communications to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, according to U.S. documents and officials. At the same time he was still arming the Taliban and Al-Qaida. Bout's connections with the Taliban didn't end with their overthrow in November 2001. Following the collapse of the Taliban, Bout's airlines were used to ferry Taliban and Al-Qaida gold out of Afghanistan to Karachi, Iran, the UAE, and Khartoum. If we've learned one thing about this asshole, it's that he will sell anything to anyone willing to pay.
In 2002 both Belgium and Interpol issued warrants for Bout's arrest. He decided it might be a good time to move back to Moscow...where they do not extradite to other nations. All while the U.S. turned a blind eye. Some European officials suggest that the U.S. has even helped Bout evade arrest. As the Interpol warrant began circulating around the world, European intelligence agents developed intel that Bout was going to be flying to Greece from his new hub in Moldova. When Bout's plane left the runway, British agents sent out an encrypted message notifying their superiors in London to prepare for his imminent arrest in Athens. But shortly after the encrypted message was sent, the aircraft suddenly went off its flight plan, disappearing into mountainous terrain. 90 minutes later the plane reappeared on radar screens, and when it landed in Athens, Greek and British special forces stormed the aircraft, only to find it empty except for the pilots and a few passengers. "There were only two intelligence services that could have decrypted the British transmission in so short a time," says one European intelligence official familiar with the operation. "The Russians and the Americans. And we know for sure it was not the Russians."
When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Bout's air-freight services were used by the U.S. military and by Halliburton, its subsidiary KBR, Federal Express and other contractors delivering everything from munitions, grenades, tents, to mail for the troops, according to flight records and U.S. military and civilian officials who monitored the flights. Oh, and remember the shipment of 200,000 AK-47's that the U.S. Department of Defense "lost" this past summer? You got it, the plane carrying that shipment was owned by none other than Viktor Bout. Or, how about the CIA "rendition" flights of prisoners to various unsavory countries that love to use torture? Once again, Vikot Bout's planes were involved in the vast majority of known flights. See a pattern here?
In 2004, the Bush administration began to press for Bout to be left off of planned UN sanctions, in spite of French efforts at the UN in March 2004 to freeze his assets and enforce an outstanding Interpol warrant for his arrest. Under pressure from the International community, Bush signed an executive order in July 2004 that made it illegal to do business with Bout or any of his companies. In May 2005, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control froze the assets of Bout, three of his associates and 30 of his companies, again making it explicitly illegal to do any business with him. But while the Treasury and State departments, as well as parts of the Pentagon, tried to shut off Bout's access to U.S. tax dollars, portions of the military and intelligence communities kept feeding him business...for almost two years after such contacts became a direct violation of a presidential directive. During which time his companies flew, literally, hundreds of flights for the Pentagon...costing the American taxpayers $60,000+ per flight.
These days, international initiatives to hunt down Bout have been mostly abandoned, confined to sporadic efforts by the U.N. and U.S. Treasury Department to freeze his assets. The CIA no longer has analysts specifically assigned to monitor his flights and follow his activities. "They're all working on counterterrorism now," says a U.S. official. So what does Viktor Bout, a man who has blood on his hands from arming countless wars, do nowadays? According to intelligence sources who have followed his activities for years, Bout is living in a luxury apartment complex in Moscow, where he is occasionally spotted eating at an upscale sushi bar he favors. Meanwhile, the Russian government denies he has committed any crime, and therefor refuses to honor any International warrants for his arrest.
Over the past year, Bout's aircraft have been discovered delivering weapons to the radical Islamic regime in Somalia, and to Hezbollah in Lebanon, where he was sighted during last summers conflict with Israel.
Ummm...shouldn't we do something about this fucker? Maybe it's just me.
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