Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible

by Douglas Farah

  As discussions intensified over whether to send British troops to Sierra Leone, Hain worried that Bout’s arms deliveries to the RUF could put them at risk. “What galled me particularly was that the guns could be used against British soldiers,” Hain recalled. “I was outraged that he was doing this with impunity, fomenting wars that destroy countries. And on top of that his arms could be turned on our soldiers.”

  Hain seized on the notion of publicly targeting Bout as a way to crystallize the remote conflicts of Africa—both to the Blair government and to world opinion. There was immediate resistance from some quarters. “No one had done this before, and no one would have done it if I hadn’t pushed the envelope,” Hain said. “The alternative was to do nothing. We had all this information. We knew when he was flying, where he was flying. But nothing was being done.”

  Hain won the backing of Robin Cook, Blair’s foreign minister, to go public. On January 18, 2000, during a House of Commons debate about the growing problems in Africa, Hain mentioned Bout publicly for the first time. Calling him a menace to British foreign policy, Hain said Bout “has flown in arms to UNITA. It is also believed that Bout owns or charters an Ilyushin 76 aircraft, which was impounded in Zambia en route to Angola last year.”6

  In early May, Sierra Leone erupted. As violence choked Freetown, Blair’s government announced that a thousand British paratroopers were being shipped into the capital to protect British and European nationals. Britain was now fully engaged, and Hain and other officials believed that weapons supplied by Bout and other arms dealers were being used against the peacekeepers.7

  In November, during a later House of Commons discussion, Hain amplified his grim imagery. “Sanctions-busters are continuing to perpetuate the conflict in Sierra Leone and Angola, with the result that countless lives are being lost and mutilations are taking place,” Hain said, rising from his bench. “Victor Bout is indeed the chief sanctions-buster, and is a merchant of death who owns air companies that ferry in arms and other logistic support for the rebels in Angola and Sierra Leone and take out the diamonds which pay for those arms. All the countries that are allowing him to use their facilities and aircraft bases to ferry that trade in death into Sierra Leone and Angola are aiding and abetting people who are turning their guns on British soldiers, among others, in Sierra Leone. It is important that they stop doing that.”

  American officials were quietly nervous about Hain’s public campaign, worried it would spur Bout to lower his profile, making it harder to track his operation. “We weren’t happy about it,” Wolosky said, “but it did cause us to coordinate more [with the British] so we weren’t working for different objectives.” As part of the joint effort, the United States broadened its electronic surveillance of African warlords and militia leaders in Central and West Africa. At the same time, British intelligence operations on the ground in West Africa were in full swing. Both agencies shared the gleanings of their efforts. “Every day I knew what Viktor Bout was talking about the day before,” said a Bout team member. “This was mostly courtesy of the British.”8

  Hain’s “merchant of death” tag stuck, a dark sobriquet that became synonymous with Bout’s growing perch atop the international arms trade. The Fleet Street press parroted the phrase repeatedly as British investigative reporters began to nose into Bout’s background and business operations. Web bloggers, too, picked up on the mocking title to the point where Internet searches for the phrase “merchant of death” invariably led straight to “Viktor Bout.”9 Hain’s one-man “name and shame” campaign proved as effective in its own right as the United Nations’ painstaking efforts to document the Bout network’s arms routes. Hain’s rhetoric demonized Bout as the enigmatic fueler of Africa’s ills, while Johan Peleman and his UN colleagues provided the damning evidence.

  As Sierra Leone disintegrated through the summer of 2000, Peleman found new work as a member of a second Security Council panel of experts researching arms embargo violations there. Now wielding the authority of a full-fledged UN staffer, Peleman jetted off on another grinding world tour, this time chasing the Bout network’s pipelines into West Africa. Among his stops were Freetown and a side trip to Sierra Leone’s diamond trading center of Kenema, and to Guinea, Liberia, South Africa, Switzerland, and once again, the UAE. Emirati officials stalled politely, then abruptly insisted that Peleman and his UN team had to leave the country. But when the UN team held their ground, demanding a tour of the Sharjah airport, the UAE officials suddenly relented. Peleman and the other UN officials observed the Bout fleet at close range. But they were still kept away from airport workers and Bout’s employees. “We were puzzled,” Peleman said. “Were they helping us or trying to get us out of the way?”10 A senior UAE official later confided that emirate federal officials and Sharjah’s local leaders were deeply divided over how to deal with the growing controversy over the Bout planes.11

  During a summer visit to UN headquarters in New York, Peleman also detoured to Washington, where he briefed State Department officials and met with analysts for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. When Peleman sounded them out about Bout’s operation, the Americans had little to offer. “Either we don’t know or we can’t tell you,” Peleman was told repeatedly. When the Americans offered a few scant details, Peleman was surprised by how inaccurate they were. “The CIA had names spelled wrong,” he recalled. “They had nothing on the connections between the companies. They knew who Bout was but they had companies listed that weren’t part of the network.”

  The world’s superpowers had finally come around. But their reluctance to share information left Peleman skeptical about their commitment to make the tough compromises necessary to work together against Bout’s organization.12

  In mid-August Wolosky, Schneidman, and four other officials from the Bout task force trooped into Richard Clarke’s suite in the Old Executive Office Building. Taking seats around a large conference table, they spoke for twenty minutes, briefing Clarke about what they had learned about Viktor Bout. From monitoring provided by both American AWACS planes operating over West Africa and ground surveillance by British intelligence, they knew that the Russian talked openly on his satellite telephone about weapons shipments. There had been extensive tracking of the flight paths of his planes, from Africa to Sharjah and even into Afghanistan. As they ran down their options, Clarke sat at one corner of the conference table, peppering them with questions. Finally he cut to the chase: “Get me a warrant.”13

  The ramifications of Clarke’s blunt challenge were clear. If the Bout team could find an amenable foreign ally willing to press charges against the Russian, Clarke would leverage the resources of the U.S. government to have him detained and brought to trial. The United States would persuade cooperating police officials to arrest Bout abroad, most likely in the UAE, where Clarke had close ties with emirati officials, or else in a consenting African or East European country. Then, sidestepping cumbersome international extradition procedures, American officials would whisk Bout to the nation that had issued the arrest warrant, where he would stand trial.

  The plan was an early version of “rendition,” the controversial technique of arresting suspects and turning them over to a third country for questioning and custody that has become a hallmark of the Bush administration. During the discussions, “Clarke raised the possibility of sending in a plane and doing a rendition,” one participant recalled. “It was definitely an option.” Another participant said that if Bout was seized “in the UAE, they would have to be willing to enforce that warrant. You can call it rendition or whatever you want, but it was one country choosing to enforce a warrant issued by another country without an extradition process.”14

  Since the September 11 attacks, the practice has been a common—and legally questionable—maneuver used by the CIA against scores of suspected al Qaeda operatives. During the Clinton administration, a number of Islamic terrorist suspects were seized by American intelligence and law enforcement officials in foreign countries a
nd flown to the United States without extradition. Clinton officials referred to the seizures as “international enforcement actions.” But Bout was among the first foreign suspects targeted for capture abroad and trial in a third country.

  In the days that followed, the Bout team turned to the immediate next step—figuring out how to get the warrant. They began mulling over a short list of countries that might be willing to put Bout on trial. The UAE was considered and rejected—Bout was too entrenched with Sharjah’s rulers, and U.S. Justice and Treasury officials saw no evidence of a clear criminal case that could be built there. They considered Angola, but were well aware that Bout’s planes were delivering to both UNITA rebels and government forces. “It would leak in a nanosecond,” Schneidman said. They thought about Uganda, but too many weapons coursed through Uganda into the DRC and other war zones. But South Africa was a strong option, Schneidman felt. And there were positive signs that Belgium’s secret investigation into allegations of Bout network money laundering might also produce an arrest warrant.

  Before they could settle on likely candidates, word arrived in August from the embassy in Abu Dhabi that Bout was trying to enter the United States. He had applied for a visa to travel to an address in Richardson, Texas. The address was matched to the office of Richard Chichakli, the former Sharjah free-zone manager who had worked with Bout in South Africa. Chichakli worked as an accountant in Richardson, a suburb of Dallas, and in June 2000 he had registered with the state of Texas as the agent for a newly incorporated Bout-orbit company, San Air General Trading LLC. The firm was a mirror image of Bout’s Sharjah-based San Air cargo airline, and one of Bout’s associates, Sergei Dennisenko, was listed as an officer.15

  Chichakli later explained that he had “set [San Air] up for Viktor” and that Bout had intended to fly to the Dallas area to scout out a location where he hoped to build a factory to manufacture plastic parts for Russian cargo planes. Those plans were scuttled, Chichakli said resentfully, after the UN arms embargo inquiries named him as a Bout associate.16

  The Bout team learned that Abu Dhabi embassy officials had quickly turned down Bout’s visa request. But some officials on the task force questioned whether it might be a better idea to let him into the United States. The Russian could be tailed by law enforcement agents and might even be caught in the act of a crime on U.S. soil, they suggested. In his monitored phone conversations, Bout had been overheard talking about coming to the United States to buy sophisticated telecommunications equipment that was restricted for sale outside the country under State Department trade laws. “He was looking for certain equipment, very advanced and secure,” said a Bout team member. “We assumed it was for his use but we couldn’t be certain.” Bout had been taking more precautions in his phone conversations, a sign that he suspected he was being monitored. He moved around often between calls, frequently discarded his phones, and spoke in veiled code, ordering “items” instead of specific weapons.17

  The embassy’s decision to bar Bout’s visit seemed to have settled the issue. But the realization that Bout had a toehold in Texas raised uneasy questions about what other United States-based operations existed. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) was assigned to put together a profile of Bout’s holdings, both inside the United States and abroad. The ATF discovered a “clear pattern” of contacts between Chichakli’s Richardson office and Bout’s shifting phone numbers. Authorities also learned that a branch of Air Cess, Bout’s Sharjah flagship, had been incorporated in Miami in September 1997, and a Gulfstream jet linked to Bout given a U.S. registry. The agent who set up the firm, a Floridian named Jerry Dobby, later declined to say who had hired him. But Dobby explained that the aviation registry was sought “for leasing purposes.” Dobby added cryptically: “It’s not good to haul arms in. A Gulfstream doesn’t do too well on those remote desert airstrips. It can tear up the landing gear.”18

  With Bout now a top priority at the NSC, surveillance and intelligence data poured in. At almost the same time that the task force was grappling with Bout’s visa request and mounting hints about his work for the Taliban, Wolosky learned of another possible terror connection. Roger Cressey, Clarke’s chief counterterrorism deputy, pulled Wolosky aside one morning and showed him a cable about a sudden move by Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to send a negotiating team to the Philippines to help free twenty-one European hostages held by Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic terror group linked to al Qaeda. “Guess who’s flying in to take out the Philippine hostages?” Cressey asked. “Your friend Viktor.”

  American intelligence had learned that Bout had provided an Ilyushin Il-76 to Gaddafi to fly a Libyan negotiating team to Manila. At the time, Gaddafi was still considered a main sponsor of international terrorism, and any aid to his isolated regime raised suspicion. Abu Sayyaf, who would later be hunted down and killed by Philippine forces, had been schooled in terror techniques at Gaddafi’s Libyan training camp. The Libyan negotiators flew to Manila on the Ilyushin, reportedly carrying as much as $21 million—in answer to Abu Sayyaf’s demand for $1 million per hostage. On August 28, the cargo plane flew back to Tripoli with the Libyan negotiators and the first six freed hostages. Over the following weeks, the others also would be released.

  Bout’s ties to the mercurial dictator turned out to be more extensive than the single flight. On August 8, a plane belonging to Jet Line, a Sharjah-based firm linked to the Bout network, was registered in Tripoli for Sin Sad, an airline tied to the Gaddafi government. Western intelligence agencies also learned that Bout ground crews had been servicing Gaddafi’s government planes, and that on several occasions Bout’s pilots flew Gaddafi himself. “One of his businesses was that he flew around African heads of state,” Wolosky said. “It was just another of the services he provided. It got him in good standing with heads of state and it was good for business.”

  Bout’s planes also had flown Zaire’s Mobutu and Liberia’s Taylor. The Bout team learned in late 2001 that U.S. aviation officials had even cleared one of the Russian’s planes to fly the wife of Gambian dictator Yahya A. J. J. Jammeh into Dulles International Airport in Virginia. Because it was an official visit, State Department officials were leery of provoking an international incident.

  Beyond the Africa desk, senior State officials were divided over how hard to press foreign allies, particularly Russia. Pickering felt that Bout was “a total rogue” and supported his capture. But Pickering was skeptical that Putin’s government would respond to a direct approach. “We assumed he was operating out of their control since he was not based in the country any longer,” Pickering said. “We figured an appeal wouldn’t have much effect.” Susan Rice said the matter was “on the bilateral agenda with the Russians, but I don’t know how far up. It is fair to assume it was a talking point, but not a focal point.” The Americans learned that British diplomats had been talking with Russian officials about Bout, but they expected little movement. Wolosky had no use for dialogue “just for the sake of chatting.” Besides, he felt that the details of any talks with the Russians would filter back to Bout. “I figured a guy with his background and organization would have lines into the Russian government.”

  Late in the year, the Bout task force went on high alert again after British intelligence relayed a tip that a courier working for the Russian was on a flight bound for JFK International Airport in New York, carrying a large contraband diamond. The Bout team notified customs officials, and agents rushed to the gate as passengers exited the plane. But the courier was not found. “They had a name but they couldn’t find the guy,” a Bout team member recalled. “Either he never showed up or he got through.”19

  In the tense hours before the plane arrived, officials in Washington were caught up in a frenzied bureaucratic tussle. NSC officials had to wrestle with the elaborate process of declassifying top-secret intelligence about Bout and his courier to provide key information to the customs agents. The snafu was typical of interagency roadblocks the Bout team encountered when they dealt w
ith Justice, FBI, and Treasury officials. In turn, law enforcement officials felt the Bout team was treading on their turf. International organized crime was a fief traditionally handled by the FBI, and Justice officials were openly skeptical of Bout’s sudden prominence as an international target.

  “There were people who said: ‘Why are you obsessed with this guy? If you take him out, there are other people who will fill his shoes,’” Wolosky recalled. “My response was that I’m not obsessed with the guy, we were in charge of implementing a presidential directive [on transnational threats]. And Viktor Bout is the first major guy on the agenda.”

  On the morning of November 8, 2000, it was no longer clear whether the Bout team would be able to carry out Clinton’s directive. After an extraordinary night of electoral chaos, the 2000 presidential race between Vice President Al Gore and Texas governor George W. Bush was deadlocked. Florida’s close vote count was under protest. Lawyers and political operatives from both campaigns were descending on the state for an unprecedented legal battle.