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Viktor Bout's Arrest in Bangkok Orchestrated by DEA

New details are emerging about Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout's capture at a five-star hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. At a press conference yesterday, Michael J. Garcia, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Acting DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart confirmed scattered press reports indicating that Bout's arrest was the result of a DEA operation. According to a press release:

Between November 2007 and February 2008, Bout and Smulian agreed to sell to the FARC millions of dollars worth of weapons -- including surface-to-air missile systems ("SAMs") and armor piercing rocket launchers. During a series of recorded telephone calls and emails, Bout and Smulian agreed to sell the weapons to two confidential sources working with the DEA (the "CSs"), who held themselves out as FARC representatives acquiring these weapons for the FARC for use in Colombia.

In addition, during a series of consensually recorded meetings in Romania, Smulian advised the CSs, among other things, that: (1) Bout had 100 SAMs available immediately; (2) Bout could also provide helicopters and armor piercing rocket launchers; (3) Bout could arrange to have a flight crew airdrop the weapons into Colombian territory using combat parachutes; and (4) Bout and Smulian would charge the CSs $5 million to transport the weapons. During one of the meetings with the CSs, Smulian provided one of the CSs with a digital memory stick that contained an article about Bout, and documents containing photographs and specifications for the SAMs and armor piercing rocket launchers that Smulian had previously said Bout could provide.

Posted by Bruce Falconer on 03/07/08 at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | Email | Print

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