1. Viktor Anatolyevich Bout is a Russian arms dealer and politician.
46 Facts About Viktor Bout
1. 2.
Viktor Bout was accused of intending to sell arms to a United States Drug Enforcement Administration informer pretending to represent the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia for use against American forces in Colombia, but Viktor Bout denied the charges and predicted an acquittal.
3.
In 2011 Viktor Bout was convicted by a jury at a federal court in Manhattan, of conspiracy to kill American citizens and officials, delivery of anti-aircraft missiles, and providing aid to a terrorist organization; he was sentenced to the minimum 25 years' imprisonment.
4.
From 2012 until 2022, Viktor Bout was held at the United States Penitentiary, Marion.
5.
Viktor Bout had served 10 years in prison before his release in December 2022.
6.
Viktor Bout became a Russian citizen following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.
7.
Viktor Bout's training allowed him to become a polyglot and master five foreign languages: Portuguese, English, French, Arabic, and Farsi.
8.
Viktor Bout is reported to be fluent in Esperanto, which he learned at age 12 in the early 1980s as a member of the Dushanbe Esperanto club.
9.
Viktor Bout is thought to have been discharged from the Soviet Army upon its dissolution in 1991 with the rank of lieutenant colonel, whereupon he started an air freight business.
10.
Viktor Bout was involved with a Soviet military operation in Angola in the late 1980s assisting the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola in the Angolan Civil War.
11.
Viktor Bout has stated that he was in Angola only for a few weeks.
12.
Air Cess is the only company connected to Viktor Bout that has ever officially recognized him as the head.
13.
Around this time, Viktor Bout earned the nickname of "Sanctions Buster" due to his implication in facilitating the violation of United Nations arms embargoes in the western African countries of Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
14.
Viktor Bout acknowledges traveling to Afghanistan on numerous occasions during the 1990s, but has denied dealing with al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
15.
The Central Intelligence Agency described Viktor Bout-owned planes as transporters of small arms and ammunition into Afghanistan.
16.
In 1995, Viktor Bout was involved in negotiations to free Russian hostages during the 1995 Airstan incident.
17.
In 2000, a United Nations report stated, "Bulgarian arms manufacturing companies had exported large quantities of different types of weapons between 1996 and 1998 on the basis of end-user certificates from Togo", and that "with only one exception, the company Air Cess, owned by Victor Viktor Bout, was the main transporter of these weapons from Burgas airport in Bulgaria".
18.
In Liberia, Viktor Bout was suspected of supplying Charles Taylor with arms for use in the First Liberian Civil War, with eyewitnesses claiming that the two met personally.
19.
Viktor Bout began using the UAE's free trade zone, and Chichakli was, at one time, called Viktor Bout's "financial manager" by the United States.
20.
Supposedly, Viktor Bout had been involved with arms dealings during the Yugoslav Wars, especially with the Bosnian government forces during its uprising against the Milosevic government in Yugoslavia.
21.
Viktor Bout is suspected of supplying weapons to numerous armed groups in Africa in the 2000s, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the Second Congo War.
22.
Viktor Bout was reportedly seen meeting with Hezbollah officials in Lebanon during the run-up to the 2006 Lebanon War, while some sources claim he was actually in Russia when the meeting took place.
23.
Records found in Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's former intelligence headquarters in Tripoli, shortly after the overthrow of the Gaddafi government in 2011, indicated that in late September 2003, British intelligence officials told then-Libyan intelligence chief Musa Kusa that Viktor Bout had a "considerable commercial presence in Libya" and aimed to expand his interests there.
24.
Viktor Bout has never been charged for the alleged African arms deals to which he owes his notoriety.
25.
In 2000, Viktor Bout was charged in the Central African Republic with forging documents and was convicted in absentia, but the charges were later dropped.
26.
Viktor Bout was charged with terrorism offences that included conspiracy to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile, conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organisation, conspiracy to kill US nationals, and conspiracy to kill United States officers or employees.
27.
On 6 March 2008, Viktor Bout was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, by the Royal Thai Police based on an Interpol red notice requested by the United States based on conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
28.
In February 2009, members of the United States Congress signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing their wish that the Viktor Bout extradition "remain a top priority".
29.
On 20 August 2010, a higher court in Thailand ruled that Viktor Bout could be extradited to the United States.
30.
On 16 November 2010, Viktor Bout was extradited from Thailand to the United States amid protests by the Russian government, who deemed it illegal.
31.
Russia's Foreign Ministry tried to prevent Viktor Bout being extradited to the US Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that Viktor Bout was innocent.
32.
The language institute Viktor Bout attended has been linked to the GRU.
33.
Viktor Bout allegedly served alongside the GRU-affiliated Sechin in Mozambique in the 1980s, although both men deny this allegation.
34.
Viktor Bout was convicted by a jury at a federal court in Manhattan on 2 November 2011.
35.
On 5 April 2012, Viktor Bout was sentenced to 25 years in prison, the minimum sentence for conspiring to sell weapons to a US-designated foreign terrorist group.
36.
US District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that the minimum sentence was appropriate because "there was no evidence that Viktor Bout would have committed the crimes for which he was convicted had it not been for the sting operation".
37.
Viktor Bout claimed that if the same standards were applied to everyone, all American gun shop owners "who are sending arms and ending up killing Americans" would be in prison.
38.
In 2014, former US Attorney General John Ashcroft's law firm represented Viktor Bout, seeking a new trial to overturn his conviction.
39.
Viktor Bout was released back to Russia on 8 December 2022.
40.
On 9 December 2022, Viktor Bout gave an interview to Maria Butina for RT, where he stated that he did not think he was important for Russian politics.
41.
On 12 December 2022, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader Leonid Slutsky announced that Viktor Bout had joined the LDPR.
42.
On 2 July 2023, Viktor Bout was nominated to run for a seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ulyanovsk Oblast as a member of the LDPR, which he ended up winning.
43.
On 6 October 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that Viktor Bout had returned to dealing arms and was in discussions with Houthi militants regarding the sale of small arms for the Houthis' attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
44.
Viktor Bout met his future wife in the late 1980s in Mozambique, where he worked as a translator from Portuguese in the Soviet military mission.
45.
Viktor Bout's daughter was born in 1994 in the UAE.
46.
Viktor Bout speaks many languages, including English, French, Portuguese, Tajik, Farsi, Dari, Zulu, Xhosa and Esperanto, most of which he learned while in prison.