とむ丸の夢 200512. Profile: Viktor Bout. 5 April 2012Last updated at 18:09 ET Viktor Bout spent more than two years in a Bangkok jail So notorious are the exploits of former Soviet air force officer Viktor Bout that they have inspired a Hollywood film and garnered him an impressively fearsome nickname - the merchant of death.
Viktor Bout. Viktor Anatolyevich Bout (Russian: Виктор Анатольевич Бут) (born 13 January 1967, near Dushanbe, Tajik SSR, Soviet Union) is a convicted Russian arms smuggler.
Bout says he has done little more than provide logistics, but former British Foreign Office minister Peter Hain called Bout a "sanctions buster"[7] and described him as "the principal conduit for planes and supply routes that take arms ... from east Europe, principally Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine, to Liberia and Angola".[11] Personal history[edit] UN documents and Bout himself both state his birthplace as Dushanbe, USSR, (now the capital of Tajikistan)[20][21][22][23] possibly on 13 January 1967,[20][23][24] but a few other birthplaces have been suggested:[21][25] A 2001 South African intelligence file listed him as Ukrainian in origin.[26][27] Soviet military service[edit]