Freed Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout back in business: Report

Viktor Bout, dubbed the ‘merchant of death’, was exchanged two years ago for US basketball star Brittney Griner.

Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer who was jailed in the United States and then swapped two years ago for the US basketball star Brittney Griner, has resumed trading weapons, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Citing an unnamed European security source and other anonymous sources familiar with the matter, the newspaper reported on Sunday that Bout, dubbed “the merchant of death” was trying to broker the sale of small arms to Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi armed group.

“When Houthi emissaries went to Moscow in August to negotiate the purchase of $10 million worth of automatic weapons, they encountered a familiar face: the mustachioed Bout,” the Journal said, citing its sources.

The potential arms transfers have yet to be delivered, it reported. The weapons fall well short of the Russian antiship or anti-air missiles that could pose a significant threat to the US military’s efforts to protect international shipping from Houthi attacks, it added.

It was not possible to independently verify the report. The Kremlin and Russia’s Ministry of Defence did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Reuters news agency.

The WSJ reported that Steve Zissou, a New York lawyer who represented Bout in the US, had declined to discuss whether his client had met the Houthis, and that a Houthi spokesman declined to comment.

After returning to Russia following the prisoner swap in December 2022, the 57-year-old Bout joined the Kremlin-loyal ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), but maintained a relatively low public profile.

Bout was one of the world’s most wanted men prior to his 2008 arrest in Thailand on multiple charges related to arms trafficking. He was extradited to the US and in 2012, was convicted and sentenced by a court in Manhattan to 25 years in prison.

For almost two decades, Bout was one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers, selling weaponry to rogue states, rebel groups and murderous warlords in Africa, Asia and South America.

His notoriety was such that his life helped inspire a Hollywood film, 2005’s Lord of War, starring Nicolas Cage as Yuri Orlov, an arms dealer loosely based on Bout.