rssLegendary Warlord Arrested in Thailand
Thursday, March 06, 2008 at 9:10 am
- 1 Comment
Whoa! Viktor Bout, one of the kingpins of the black-market weapons trade, was actually arrested in Thailand. To call this huge is an understatement: Bout profited off nearly every West and Central African conflict of the last 20 years, and CNN says British intelligence believes he even sold guns to al-Qaeda. If you believe in the death penalty, Bout is why; and if you don’t, Bout might make you at least momentarily reconsider. The SOB has probably sold his movie rights already.
To read more about Bout (sorry), check out former WashPost reporter Doug Farah over at the Counterterrorism Blog, who has tracked Bout journalistically for over a decade.
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1 Comment
Comment posted March 6, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
Umm, isn’t he a warLORD, not warload?
I’m just sayin’. BTW in the Foreign Policy <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3600&page=0">profile</a> of Bout, they have this beautiful gem:
"Bout’s real money came when he realized he could fly lucrative commercial cargo on the flights back from the weapons deliveries. His most profitable enterprise was flying gladiolas purchased for $2 in Johannesburg and resold for $100 in Dubai."
The man smuggled arms for decades, but he made the most money, by far, by selling flowers.
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