Who is Victor Bout and Why Does He Matter?

WHO IS VICTOR BOUT 

AND WHY DOES HE MATTER?

By Thomas Coffin

According to the BBC, Viktor Bout is one of the world’s most infamous arms dealers. Known as the “Merchant of Death”, he was sentenced in 2012 to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to kill Americans after a jury trial before a federal court in New York. However, after serving just 10 years, he was swapped in a prisoner exchange with Russia for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, who had been imprisoned for possessing some cannabis oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow. 

Bout earned his gruesome title by profiting from supplying weapons to combatants in war-torn regions throughout the world, including Afghanistan, Colombia and a number of African countries. 

Strife and conflict are perceived as opportunities for arms profiteers. In 2008 Bout journeyed to Thailand to sell AK-47s, SAMS, and other weapons on the black market and was targeted in a sting operation by DEA agents masquerading as terrorists seeking to buy weaponry. They presented themselves as Columbian FARC rebels and told Bout they needed missiles and rocket launchers to take down American helicopters and even a passenger airline. Bout shrugged and retorted that he didn’t care what they used them for.

There are several lessons to take from this sting operation, and I recommend the reader first peruse my article The GOP Solution for the Mass Murder of your Children: Zero to put them in context. In that essay I made the case for criminal investigations of the gun sellers who traffic in assault weapons.  

Bout’s “shrug” is precisely the modus operandi of virtually all such arms traffickers in military weaponry. They shield themselves by a shrug and wall themselves off by not inquiring about or tracking the criminal use of their products. It is a business for them, and once the transaction is consummated, they have no control over the weapons’ use. Why even care about how they are used when you cannot control how they are used? In other words, the weaponry on the black market is “unregulated.”

Another lesson is in the sting operation itself. That is a criminal investigation technique. Just as it was “shocking” to find that gambling was going on at the Casablanca, it may be “shocking” to find that the gun seller had enough gray matter to figure out that his urban sniper firearm was purchased for “umm” urban sniping.

The final lesson is found in the outrage from Republicans when President Biden agreed to exchange Bout for Griner in the swap deal with Putin; the Republicans argued that Bout had been selling arms with the knowledge that the weapons would be used against Americans. How ironic and hypocritical is that? This is exactly what U.S. manufacturers are doing by selling AR-15s and similar assault weapons with a wink and a shrug every bloody day. 

They need to look in the mirror.

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Thomas Coffin was the keynote speaker at the Blackberry Pie Society’s Political Party in February, 2020 and at Politics and Pie in October, 2022.  He is a retired federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon and a former professor at the UO Law School. Thomas retired in 2016 after 24 years on the bench, prior to which he had a career as a federal prosecutor spanning 21 years. He is married with 7 children.  The Blackberry Pie Society is pleased to include a collection of his essays on our website.  We will post them as they become available.

posted 6.1.2023