DEA sting operation led to arms dealer arrest

NY Times:

A Russian businessman regarded by the United States as one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers was arrested in Thailand on Thursday as part of an American-led sting operation. He was promptly charged in the United States with conspiracy for trying to smuggle missiles and rocket launchers to rebels in Colombia.

The businessman, Viktor Bout, 41, is suspected of supplying weapons to the Taliban and Al Qaeda and of pouring huge arms shipments into Africa’s civil wars with his own private air fleet. He was arrested by the Thai authorities at a hotel in Bangkok in an operation in which undercover investigators posing as rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, sought to purchase millions of dollars in arms.

Federal prosecutors in New York said they would seek the extradition of Mr. Bout (pronounced boot) and an associate, Andrew Smulian, who was also arrested in Bangkok on Thursday, to stand trial in the United States on a charge of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Although American officials said Thailand appeared to be eager to be rid of Mr. Bout, it was not known when he would be brought to the United States.

Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that Mr. Bout “was apprehended in the final stages of arranging the sale of millions of dollars of high-powered weapons to people he believed to represent a known terrorist organization, the FARC.”

...

A criminal complaint unsealed in Manhattan said the plans for a meeting with Mr. Bout in Thailand had taken shape after earlier meetings, most of them conducted by Mr. Smulian, with informants posing as FARC members in the Netherlands Antilles, Denmark and Romania. The conversations were secretly recorded by drug enforcement agents. The actual size of the deal was not made clear from the documents released by the government, but the complaint indicated that Mr. Bout planned to charge a $5 million delivery fee to transport the surface-to-air missiles and armor piercing rocket launchers to South America.

...

A mythology grew up around Mr. Bout in the 1990s, but in 2002 he appeared abruptly on a Moscow radio station, insisting that he was innocent and that he had never had contact with Taliban or Qaeda representatives. He said the accusations against him “resemble more a script for a Hollywood thriller.”

“I can say only one thing: I have never supplied or done anything, and I have never been in contact with either Taliban representatives or Al Qaeda representatives,” Mr. Bout said.

...

On Feb. 22, the complaint said that Mr. Bout, who was believed to be in Russia, agreed to meet with the supposed FARC members in Thailand during the first week of March to complete the arrangements for the deal. Later, one undercover source told Mr. Smulian: “Get ready for travel.”

...

The article does not explain his connection with the Taliban and al Qaeda nor his subsequent denial of connections. The Taliban and al Qaeda have not really used sophisticated weapons and most of what they use appear to be Soviet era small arms and RPGs.

The computer found in the possession of the FARC commander suggested the group was trying to acquire uranium, but there has been no indication that Bout would be a supplier. I suspect that FARC will be getting its weapons directly from Chavez for now.

The Washington Post indicates that Bout also had an active air cargo business delivering the arms he sold as well as making special deliveries for others in war zones in cluding teh US in the early days of the Iraq war.