Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible
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“They don’t stop him. They only make him mad,” sighed a European intelligence official who once specialized in Bout’s operation but now had less and less time and latitude to keep tabs on the network’s constant metamorphoses. “These actions are only reminders that he is out there, still doing his deadly business.”
In the end, international hypocrisy and the collapse of the post-Cold War order had allowed Bout’s empire to thrive and sustain itself. Like the bleakly amoral characters that populate Graham Greene’s novels and John le Carré’s thrillers, Bout deftly surfed the upheaval of the 1990s, playing to the shifting desires of nations uncertain of their own way in the rapidly changing world. Bout intuitively understood the business potential of catering to rebel armies and criminal regimes that controlled access to lucrative natural resources and were willing to barter for weapons. Reaching far into remote lawless regions and failed states, he had become the master of weapons delivery to all corners of the globe, redefining the logistics of twenty-first-century warfare.
His nimble, shape-shifting network consistently outpaced the hidebound and often contradictory responses of the nations that pursued him. Nowhere was this policy schizophrenia more apparent than in the Bush administration’s eagerness to use his planes in Iraq while pestering his network with limited sanctions. The United States was hardly alone in its clashing impulses: Britain, Belgium, South Africa, and the United Nations targeted the Bout empire, yet they all had employed his network or benefited from his operations—and dozens of smaller countries, from the UAE to Liberia, unabashedly courted Bout’s business and welcomed his planes.
Institutional blindness, incompetence, corruption, and lack of sustained efforts often paved the rise of Bout’s global network. From the rapacious greed of the Eastern bloc’s newly liberated armaments industry to the flimsy contracting methods of the U.S. military, officials had consistently looked the other way, either unwittingly or purposely, allowing Bout’s planes to keep on delivering their long, green crates. The shortsighted official paralysis that some cynics described as “superpower attention deficit disorder” seemed sadly fitting in a world that had made scant progress in instituting clear, strongly enforced international standards governing the global movement of weapons.
Only the all-too-brief momentum shown by the American and European efforts to curtail Bout’s operation in early 2000 and 2001 held out the promise of what might be accomplished if nations were to set aside their provincial interests and join in common efforts against the contraband arms trade. The idealistic, single-minded determination of officials such as Wolosky, Schneidman, Morgner, and Hain and activists such as Peleman and Austin provide determined models for those who would confront the vast arms flows that continue to fuel violent conflicts around the world.
Still, for all their failings, governments have at worst been only Bout’s enablers. It is Bout and his associates who ultimately bear the blame for the lethal wares they deliver. But guilt is not in Bout’s lexicon. He clings perpetually to his denials, complaining always that he has been unfairly persecuted for being a successful businessman. His prosperity is indeed remarkable, owing much to the vision, ambition, guile, and discretion of one exceptional, enterprising man. But over the course of his audacious career, Bout reaped his brimming fortune at the expense of the nameless thousands who were victimized by the wars he stoked.
NOTES
All the material collected for this book, unless otherwise noted, was obtained by the authors in interviews with the people involved.
Prologue
1 Human Rights Watch World Report, 2000, and press accounts.
2 Authors’ interview with Bout associate, March 13, 2006.
3 Notes of Chichakli interview provided by Andre Verloy.
Chapter 1: The Delivery Man
1 This account is based on interviews and the writings of Belgian journalist Dirk Draulans, the only journalist to spend time with Bout in the African bush. His writings include “De Criminele Verhalen van de Brave Soldaat Bout,” Knack, May 16, 2001.
2 Christian Dietrich, “Diamonds and the Central African Republic: Trading, Valuing and Laundering,” Diamond and Human Security Project, Occasional Paper 8, Partnership Africa Canada, January 2003.
3 Lora Lumpe, ed., Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms (London: Zed Books, 2000), p. 2.
4 Intelligence reports obtained by the authors; interviews with U.S. Treasury officials and press release, “Treasury Designates Viktor Bout’s International Arms Trafficking Network,” April 26, 2005; Stephen Braun, Judy Pasternak, and T. Christian Miller, “Blacklisted Russian Tied to Iraq Deals,” Los Angeles Times, December 14, 2004. Intelligence reports that touted the Bout network’s $50 million take from the Taliban have been questioned by some arms trade experts, but in 2006, Treasury officials backed the estimate. One official later explained that the $50 million amount included both arms and noncontraband cargoes. In Iraq, U.S. flight and fuel service records obtained by the Los Angeles Times documented at least 142 flights between March and August 2004, and several contractors verified that Bout-orbit firms were charging as much as $60,000 for each flight. Hundreds more flights are estimated between mid-2003 and the present, and hard estimates of as many as a thousand flights in that period may have netted the Bout network as much as $60 million.
5 Intelligence reports obtained by the authors; Interpol warrant for Bout’s arrest, February 18, 2002. The Interpol warrant, based on a Belgian charging document, alleged that from 1994 to 1996, some 860 million in Belgian francs were moved from a Liberian firm and the Angolan air force and Angolan armed forces into the Belgian accounts of a Bout-controlled firm. From 1996 onward, another 150 million in Belgian francs were “systematically transferred” to two other Bout-operated companies. The total amount of Belgian francs equaled U.S. $32.5 million.
6 Paul Salopek, “Shadowy Men Run Guns, Feed Fires of War,” Chicago Tribune, December 24, 2001, p. 1.
7 James Boxell, “The Kalashnikov, the World’s Most Prolific Killing Machine, Stands the Test of Time,” Financial Times of London, June 7, 2006, p. 5.
8 “RPG-7/RPG-7V/RPG-7VR Rocket-Propelled Grenade Launcher Multipurpose Weapon, Manufacturer: Basalt Russia, Defense Update,” International Online Defense Magazine, 2004, issue 1.
9 Authors’ interview with Bout associate, March 13, 2006.
10 Frontline interviews with Johan Peleman, October-December 2001.
11 Special Court for Sierra Leone, Prosecutor v. Charles Ghankay Taylor, Case SCSL-2003-01-1, March 7, 2003.
12 “Hague Referral for African Pair,” BBC, April 14, 2005, accessed at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4908938.stm.
13 John Prendergast, “Angola’s Deadly War: Dealing with Savimbi’s Hell on Earth,” United States Institute of Peace, October 12, 1999.
14 Air crash incidents gathered from news accounts, international air registries, and from AirDisaster.com, a Web archive of aviation accident histories. Plane crashes linked to the Bout organization include an Ilyushin Il-18 in the DRC in 1998 and an Antonov An-32 the same year; two Yakovlevs damaged in Kenya and the Central African Republic in the late 1990s; and an Antonov An-12 that crashed in Yemen in 2005.
15 Los Angeles Times interviews with Russian aviation executives, March 2002.
16 Authors’ interviews and Thomas M. Callghy, “Life and Death in the Congo,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2001.
17 Center for Public Integrity, Making a Killing: The Business of War (Washington, D.C.: Public Integrity Books, 2003), p. 145.
18 Peter Landesman, “Arms and the Man,” New York Times Magazine, August 17, 2003.
19 Authors’ e-mail interview with Sanjivan Ruprah, May 18, 2006.
20 John Daniszewski, Stephen Braun, Judy Pasternak, Maura Reynolds, and Sergei L. Loiko, “On the Trail of a Man behind Taliban’s Air Fleet,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2002.
21 Los Angeles Times interview with Alexander Sidorenko, March 25, 2002.
2
2 Los Angeles Times interview with Sergei Mannkhayev, April 2002.
23 Los Angeles Times interviews with Russian aviation executives and U.S. officials, April 2002.
24 Los Angeles Times interview with Vladimir Sharpatov, March 27, 2002.
25 Los Angeles Times interview with Igor Abdayev, April 2002.
26 Translated transcript of Viktor Bout interview with Radio Echo Moskvy, February 28, 2002. The authors requested an interview with Bout and also offered to relay questions by e-mail, but neither Bout or his Russian lawyer responded.
27 Los Angeles Times telephone interview with Sergei Bout, March 2002.
Chapter 2: Planes, Guns, and Money
1 FBIS, trans., “Viktor Bout Interviewed on Western Press Allegations,” Moscow Komsosmolskaya Pravda, March 5, 2002.
2 Passport copy from U.S. Department of Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, “Intelligence Brief: Victor But, Transnational Criminal Activities,” December 2000. Bout gave his place of birth in a February 28, 2002, interview with Radio Echo Moskvy. Interpol Red Notice, February 18, 2002.
3 Intelligence documents obtained by the authors.
4 Peter Landesman, “Arms and the Man,” New York Times Magazine, August 17, 2003.
5 Intelligence documents obtained by the authors.
6 Los Angeles Times interview with Alexander Sidorenko, March 25, 2002.
7 Authors’ interview with British intelligence analyst, June 2006.
8 Translated transcript of Viktor Bout interview with Radio Echo Moskvy, February 28, 2002.
9 Dirk Draulans, “The Criminal Stories of the Good Soldier Bout,” Knack 20, May 16, 2001.
10 Los Angeles Times interview with Alexander Sidorenko, March 25, 2002.
11 British intelligence analyst, op. cit..
12 Landesman, “Arms and the Man.”
13 Authors’ interview with Bout associate, April 2006.
14 A European intelligence source who tracked Bout for several years said that he came to be protected by, and work for, a semiofficial Russian company called Isotrex, whose board is largely made up of deputy ministers of different key government agencies tied to the weapons trade. An indication of how much backing Bout had, according to European intelligence sources, was his reported involvement in the founding in 1992 of a small private Swiss bank in Geneva. The chief financial officer was Olivier Piret, whom Bout would later take to South Africa to handle his financial affairs. The Swiss shut the bank down in 1997 because of questionable financial practicies, according to European and intelligence reports.
15 Los Angeles Times interview with Sergei Mankhayev, April 2002. The identities of most of Bout’s military contacts and other prominent Russian backers remain shrouded. One name that repeatedly surfaced was Major General Vladimir Marchenko, reportedly a longtime Bout business associate. Marchenko was a senior veteran of the Federal Security Bureau, the counterintelligence agency once headed by Russian Federation president Vladimir Putin. Marchenko was selected by Putin in May 1998 to head the Internal Security Directorate, Russia’s leading antiterror unit. Said to be a specialist in ethnic organized crime, Marchenko held that official position until 2002. A South African intelligence document said the intelligence veteran headed a crime syndicate known as the “Marchenko organization.” According to intelligence documents, Marchenko ordered Bout to return to Russia in 1998 after the Angola government canceled its business with him, discovering that he had supplied both sides in the nation’s civil war. Richard Chichakli, Bout’s Syrian American partner, told Andre Verloy that “Bout cannot be recalled by anyone, because he works for no one.” Still, Chichakli acknowledged, Marchenko was a “business acquaintance” of Bout’s.
16 Andre Verloy, unpublished notes of interview with Richard Chichakli, February 21, 2002.
17 Los Angeles Times interview with Valery Spurnov, April 2002.
18 Los Angeles Times interview with Russian aviation executive, March 2002.
19 Los Angeles Times interview with KAS official, April 3, 2002.
20 Los Angeles Times interviews with Spurnov and Russian aviation executive.
21 Authors’ interview with British intelligence analyst, June 2006
22 Authors’ interview with Bout associate, March 16, 2006.
23 John Daniszewski, Stephen Braun, Judy Pasternak, Maura Reynolds, and Sergei L. Loiko, “On the Trail of a Man behind Taliban’s Air Fleet,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2002.
24 “Gunrunners,” Frontline, PBS, March 2002, accessed at www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/sierraleone/bout.html.
25 Stephen Braun and Judy Pasternak, “Long before Sept. 11, Bin Laden’s Aircraft Flew under the Radar,” Los Angeles Times, November 18, 2001.
26 Graham H. Turbiville Jr., “Mafia in Uniform: The Criminalization of the Russian Armed Forces,” U.S. Army, Foreign Military Studies Office.
27 Intelligence documents obtained by the authors.
28 Los Angeles Times interview with U.S. and UN officials, April 2002; letter dated April 19, 2002, from the chairman of the Security Council Committee established pursuant to Resolution 1343 (2001) concerning Liberia addressed to the president of the Security Council, paras. 65- 66; investigative Journalist Assn. (Bulgaria), “The Business with Death and the Yuroembargo,” December 22, 2003.
29 R. W. Dellow, repr., 1992 speech by General Petr Stepanovich Deynekin. Sandhurst, U.K.: Conflict Studies Research Centre, Royal Military Academy, June 1993.
30 Authors’ interview with British intelligence analyst, op cit.
31 Authors’ interview with U.S. Treasury official, May 23, 2006.
32 Report of the Panel of Experts in Relation to Sierra Leone to the Secretary-General, United Nations, December 2000, paragraph 221. From 1996 through 1998, Bout associates Michael Harridine and Ronald De Smet conducted business in the United Kingdom on behalf of the Liberian Aircraft Register. This presented no logistical problems, since the aircraft did not need to be physically present to receive certificates of airworthiness. The certificates allowed Bout’s planes to make international flights. The involvement of the two Bout associates was documented by the UN’s Final Report of the Monitoring Mechanism on Angola Sanctions to the Secretary-General, December 21, 2000, paras. 142-144.
33 United Nations Final Report of the Monitoring Mechanism on Angola Sanctions to the Secretary-General, December 21, 2000, paras. 142-144.
34 Landesman, “Arms and the Man.”
35 Ibid.
36 Author interviews with intelligence officials and Bout associates.
37 Los Angeles Times interview with Sidorenko.
Chapter 3: A Dangerous Business
1 Los Angeles Times interviews with former Afghan deputy defense ministers Ahmet Muslem Hayat and Abdul Latif and with former Afghan deputy civil aviation minister Mohammed Eshaq, March 2002. All three men said Bout’s planes started flying for the Rabbani government in 1992 after the collapse of the government of Mohammed Najibullah, and continued until Taliban forces seized power in September 1996.
2 Peter Landesman, “Arms and the Man,” New York Times Magazine, August 17, 2003.
3 Authors’ interview with Bout associate, March 6, 2006. According to the associate, the blossoming ties between Bout and the Afghans had origins in the Russian’s Tajik birthplace. Both Massoud and Rabbani were ethnic Tajiks, whose customs and language Bout knew well. The Russian’s first Afghan connection was a Tajik warlord named Salam, who operated in the Pamir district of Afghanistan. Bout also had fixers, the associate said, in Russia’s 201st Army Division, then based in Tajikistan.
4 John Daniszewski, Stephen Braun, Judy Pasternak, Maura Reynolds, and Sergei L. Loiko, “On the Trail of a Man behind Taliban’s Air Fleet,” Los Angeles Times, May 19, 2002; also the Los Angeles Times interviews with Hayat, Latif, and Eshaq.
5 Daniszewski et al., “On the Trail”; Los Angeles Times interview with Hayat, March 2002; James Risen, “Russians Are Back in Afghanistan,” New York Times, July 27, 1996: “Massoud
has said in interviews that he receives much of his equipment from the Russian mafia, not the Russian government.”
6 John C. Holzman, diplomatic cable from U.S. embassy, Islamabad, April 17, 1995, provided by National Security Archive, George Washington University; Robin Bhatty and David Hoffman, “Afghanistan: Crisis of Impunity,” Human Rights Watch, July 2001; Robert Fisk, “Circling over a Broken, Ruined State,” Independent (London), July 14, 1996: In a classified cable sent to Washington in April 1995, Holzman, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan, said that Russia’s public stance against the involvement of private arms dealers profiteers only increased “the price to a point where other suppliers may become more attractive.” But as Massoud’s forces battled other Afghan warlord factions and contended with the rise of the Taliban, Russian officials looked the other way while Bout and other arms suppliers kept weapons flowing. Some weapons shipments arrived through overland routes across the Tajik border “with the active collusion of the Russian government,” Holzman wrote.