The life of businessman Victor Bout is a series of dubious successes that ended in prison. In addition to his own name, he is also called the "arms baron" and the "merchant of death." His activity in the sale of weapons by an American court estimated at twenty-five years in prison.
Biography
Victor Bout was born in Dushanbe in 1967. He grew up a smart boy, after school he was almost immediately drafted into the army for military service. At that time, the army gave a great advantage when entering the institute, and therefore, after military service, Victor plans to graduate and enters the Military Institute of Foreign Languages.
He has the ability to learn languages, and already during his studies he begins to work as a translator in African countries. After college, Booth quickly learns the Chinese language and immediately leaves the army, rising to the rank of senior lieutenant.
After that, Booth gets a job at the air transportation center, from where various deliveries are sent to Brazil and Mozambique, and he often visits these countries for work. At that time, he came up with the idea of his own business abroad, but this was not yet possible.
With the collapse of the USSR, everything changed: aviation fell into decay, and those who wanted to buy an airplane could buy it for little money. Booth realized that this was a good time to start his own business and bought a plane, almost opening his own airline.
Things went uphill, and after some time he became the owner of the companies Transavia and IRBIS. His first business was connected with the delivery of fresh flowers and frozen meat, but this, apparently, was not enough for him. He soon became the owner of Air Cess Liberia in the United Arab Emirates.
In 1996, Booth became a supplier of Russian fighter aircraft to Malaysia. And at the same time, there were rumors that he was delivering weapons to warring countries. Then Booth lived in Belgium, but was already "on the hook" with the security services that monitored his illegal business.
Crime Detection
Afghanistan, Angola, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Al-Qaeda - these, according to media reports, are Bout's clients to whom he delivered weapons. Terrorists from these countries received weapons that the enterprising businessman bought at the factories of the former Soviet Union.
The media had specific accusations against him, but he got away with it. The pilots testified against him, but this was not recognized as a weighty argument.
And only in 2002, the United States published the official figures of Booth’s income from the arms trade - he earned more than thirty million dollars only from supplies for the Taliban.
Since 2005, the freezing of the assets of Booth companies in different countries begins, and Booth himself rejected all the charges. In 2008, the US drug police arrested Bout in Bangkok, and in 2010, the court passed his final sentence: 25 years in prison.
In 2017, lawyers attempted to appeal the verdict, but the court refused.
