- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 410
A rather interesting gentleman:
"Consider the case of one particular bad guy, Viktor Bout -- a stout, canny Russian air transporter who also happens to be the world's most notorious arms dealer."
-THE UNITED STATES seems to be missing some guns in Iraq. Somehow, the U.S. military has lost track of 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 80,000 pistols that were supposedly delivered from our caches to Iraqi security forces........When the U.S. government needed to fly four planeloads of seized weapons from an American base in Bosnia to Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in August 2004, they used a Moldovan air cargo firm tied to Bout's aviation empire. The problem is that the planes apparently never arrived
-For more than a decade before he landed on U.S. payrolls, Bout's air cargo operations delivered tons of contraband weapons -- ranging from rifles to helicopter gunships -- to some of the world's most dangerous misfits.
-Last summer, a jumbo Il-76 flying the Khazakh flag swooped down to a landing in Mogadishu to unload arms for radical Islamic leaders who briefly seized control of Somalia. It was one of Bout's planes, concluded U.S. military intelligence officials.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-braun13aug13,1,7493266.story?coll=la-news-a_section
-Bout was the biggest operator in the African arms market. He ran a myriad of companies employing an estimated 300 people. The companies operated 40 to 60 aircraft, including the world's largest private fleet of Russian-made Antonov cargo planes, according to the investigation by ICIJ.
-The UN backed an international warrant in 2001 for the arrest of Bout. But Bout enjoys support in high places and has been living comfortably in Moscow.
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23828
-"Landing heavy cargo planes with illicit cargoes in war conditions and breaking international embargoes such as the one on Angola requires more than individual effort. It takes an internationally organized network of individuals, well funded, well connected and well versed in brokering and logistics, with the ability to move illicit cargo around the world without raising the suspicions of the law or with the ability to deal with obstacles. One organization, headed, or at least to all appearances outwardly controlled by an Eastern European, Victor Bout, is such an organization." U.N. Angola Report, December 21, 2000 http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/sierraleone/bout.html
-The profligate use of Russian-designed weapons and ammo creates a constant demand for resupply, and Bout has armed almost every warlord and militant who can afford it. He was the single largest supplier of guns to the Revolutionary United Front and its child soldiers in Sierra Leone, stoking horrific campaigns of mass torture, rape, and amputation. Bout also armed warring factions in Afghanistan in the late nineties, nimbly working for the Northern Alliance government while covertly selling planes and weapons to Taliban militants, who shared them with Al Qaeda.http://www.mensvogue.com/business/blackbook/articles/2007/06/viktor_bout
"Consider the case of one particular bad guy, Viktor Bout -- a stout, canny Russian air transporter who also happens to be the world's most notorious arms dealer."
-THE UNITED STATES seems to be missing some guns in Iraq. Somehow, the U.S. military has lost track of 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 80,000 pistols that were supposedly delivered from our caches to Iraqi security forces........When the U.S. government needed to fly four planeloads of seized weapons from an American base in Bosnia to Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in August 2004, they used a Moldovan air cargo firm tied to Bout's aviation empire. The problem is that the planes apparently never arrived
-For more than a decade before he landed on U.S. payrolls, Bout's air cargo operations delivered tons of contraband weapons -- ranging from rifles to helicopter gunships -- to some of the world's most dangerous misfits.
-Last summer, a jumbo Il-76 flying the Khazakh flag swooped down to a landing in Mogadishu to unload arms for radical Islamic leaders who briefly seized control of Somalia. It was one of Bout's planes, concluded U.S. military intelligence officials.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-braun13aug13,1,7493266.story?coll=la-news-a_section
-Bout was the biggest operator in the African arms market. He ran a myriad of companies employing an estimated 300 people. The companies operated 40 to 60 aircraft, including the world's largest private fleet of Russian-made Antonov cargo planes, according to the investigation by ICIJ.
-The UN backed an international warrant in 2001 for the arrest of Bout. But Bout enjoys support in high places and has been living comfortably in Moscow.
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23828
-"Landing heavy cargo planes with illicit cargoes in war conditions and breaking international embargoes such as the one on Angola requires more than individual effort. It takes an internationally organized network of individuals, well funded, well connected and well versed in brokering and logistics, with the ability to move illicit cargo around the world without raising the suspicions of the law or with the ability to deal with obstacles. One organization, headed, or at least to all appearances outwardly controlled by an Eastern European, Victor Bout, is such an organization." U.N. Angola Report, December 21, 2000 http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/sierraleone/bout.html
-The profligate use of Russian-designed weapons and ammo creates a constant demand for resupply, and Bout has armed almost every warlord and militant who can afford it. He was the single largest supplier of guns to the Revolutionary United Front and its child soldiers in Sierra Leone, stoking horrific campaigns of mass torture, rape, and amputation. Bout also armed warring factions in Afghanistan in the late nineties, nimbly working for the Northern Alliance government while covertly selling planes and weapons to Taliban militants, who shared them with Al Qaeda.http://www.mensvogue.com/business/blackbook/articles/2007/06/viktor_bout
