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Critical CriminologyThe official Journal of the ASC Divisionon Critical Criminology and the ACJSSection on Critical Criminology ISSN 1205-8629 Crit CrimDOI 10.1007/s10612-015-9281-8
Secrets Exposed?: Selective State Concernand the Prosecution of Notorious ArmsTrafficker Viktor Bout
Victoria Ellen Collins & Melissa Pujol
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Secrets Exposed?: Selective State Concernand the Prosecution of Notorious ArmsTrafficker Viktor Bout
Victoria Ellen Collins1 • Melissa Pujol1
� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015
Abstract Criminological scholarship has long recognized that small arms are trafficked
through large and complex international networks that involve a multitude of different
actors. These actors include different buyers, sellers, brokers, intermediaries, corporations,
and most importantly states. Despite this recognition, there has been little research on the
duality of the role of states that are both perpetrators and controllers of this crime. Here we
analyze the court transcripts and media accounts of the prosecution of notorious arms
trafficker Viktor Bout. In doing so, we show that arms trafficking prosecutions fit within
the realm of neo-liberal crime control policies where the focus is hyper-individualism and
the protection of state legitimacy, which allows for the maintenance of a flourishing arms
market.
Introduction
Estimates indicate that there are approximately 875 million small arms in circulation
worldwide (United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs 2013), manufactured by one
thousand different companies, and located in nearly one hundred countries (Small Arms
Survey 2013). Small arms are defined as ‘‘civilian, private, and military weapons that fire a
projectile with the condition that the unit or system may be carried by an individual, a
small number of people, or transported by a pack animal or a light vehicle’’ (United
Nations General Assembly 1997). They are used by a wide array of actors involved in
various criminal enterprises including, but not limited to, insurgents, drug lords, street
gangs, pirates, as well as ‘‘traditional’’ street criminals (United Nations Office for
& Victoria Ellen CollinsVictoria.Collins@eku.edu
Melissa Pujolmelissa_pujol@mymail.eku.edu
1 School of Justice Studies, Eastern Kentucky University, 521 Lancaster Avenue, Richmond,KY 40475, USA
123
Crit CrimDOI 10.1007/s10612-015-9281-8
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Disarmament Affairs 2013). Small arms have also been responsible for approximately 90
percent of all war casualties since World War II (Bassiouni 2010; Bohlander 2009). Small
arms have been used in some of the bloodiest conflicts in recent history including Sierra
Leone’s 11 year civil war (Schroeder and Lamb 2006), the genocide in Rwanda (Human
Rights Watch Project 1994), and most recently the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq (Small
Arms Survey 2013).
Although some of these arms reach their destination through legal transactions (termed
white market sales), a vast number of them are sold through illicit networks. This is due to
the covert nature of transactions that occur on the gray and black market (i.e. the concealed
and secretive transfer of arms for money), as well as the abstruse nature of gray market
sales that originate with legal state to state transfers but result in arms being transferred to
third parties in clear contravention of existing arms embargoes through the utilization of
rogue brokers or insurgency groups (Rothe and Collins 2011; Rothe and Ross 2011).
Despite this fact, there has been relatively little attention paid to the role of states as
complicit or implicit facilitators of arms trafficking (with the exception of Rothe and Ross
2011).
While arms trafficking prosecutions are relatively rare in relation to the totality of arms
trafficking, they do remain focused on a select number of individuals rather than the
broader system or the host of actors involved in making such illegal transactions possible.
This is a similar approach that is taken to deal with street crime or the ‘War on Drugs.’ We
suggest that through the analysis of the US prosecution of the international arms dealer
Viktor Bout, the process of transforming the agenda and framing of Bout as a ‘lone’ arms
trafficker further reveals this pattern regardless of the role of the United States and other
countries in his illegal arms trafficking. This fits within the realm of neo-liberal crime
control policies where the focus is hyper-individualism, selective enforceability, and the
protection of state legitimacy. After briefly reviewing the literature on the issue of selective
enforcement as it relates to state criminality, we lay out our method for this research before
providing a brief history of Viktor Bout including the events that led up to his apprehension
in Thailand in 2008.
Selectivity of Enforcement: A Brief Review of the Literature
As noted above there is relatively little literature that addresses the dual role of the state as
both perpetrator and prosecutor of arms trafficking (see Rothe and Ross 2011 for the
exception). There does exist however, an established literature so vast it is only possible to
address in brief, that calls attention to the selective enforcement of crime control policies
by law enforcement and the criminal justice system in general (Alexander 2010; Chambliss
1989; Currie 1998; Massoglia and Warner 2011; Pager 2008; Skolnick 2007; Spelman
2007; Sutherland 1940). Much of this literature draws attention to traditional street crime
as it relates to the disparate enforcement of crime control policies that have adverse
impacts on certain populations (i.e. racial minorities) (Alpert et al. 2007; Alexander 2010;
Brunson 2007; Harris 2007; Mauer and King 2007; Glaze 2010). Other literature illustrates
that some crimes, such as white collar, corporate and state crimes, due to the power and
status of the offenders escape prosecution or are purposefully omitted from the focus of the
criminal justice system (Chambliss 1989; Kramer and Michalowski 2006; Sutherland
1940). This is something that is especially pertinent to the perpetration of state violence
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due to the highly politicized law-making process (Barak, Leighton and Flavin 2010;
Chambliss 1989; Hagan 2010; Sutherland 1940; Rothe 2009).
Scholars of state crime have long recognized the difficulties of controlling state crime
when the state has authority over defining what constitutes criminal behavior (Iadicola and
Shupe 2013; Michalowski 1985; Rothe 2009; Rothe and Ross 2011). As argued by Rothe
and Ross (2011: 3) ‘‘defining state behaviors as criminal or illegal given the states position
to self-define acts as legal or illegal and the concept of harm based definitions’’ is prob-
lematic. This is especially true when the state is complicit in the criminal behavior of other
states or in corporate offending in the case of state-corporate crime (Cruciotti and Mat-
thews 2006; Kramer and Michalowski 2006; Rothe 2009). State crime scholars have
argued that states are often complicit in some of the worst crimes such as genocide
(Mullins 2009), torture (Smeulers and van Niekerk 2009), piracy (Chambliss 1989; Collins
2014), assassination (Bohlander 2009), drone warfare (Rothe and Collins 2014), as well as
behaviors that fall under the umbrella of transnational crime (Andreas and Nadelmann
2006; Burns and Lynch 2004; Friedrichs 2007; Pickering 2007). What has clearly been
established is that controlling state crime, whether implicit or complicit, is highly prob-
lematic when the state has power over whether its behavior is defined as criminal and the
agencies that are responsible for enforcing the law: i.e. the state provides the resources and
political justifications for prioritizing the enforcement of some crimes over others as
evidenced in the ‘War on Drugs’ and the ‘War on Terror’. It is from this perspective that
we approach the issue of arms trafficking and the prosecution of Viktor Bout.
Method
Here we utilized a qualitative case study approach to examine the framing and presentation
of arms trafficking charges against Bout for the 4 years following his apprehension on
March 7, 2008. Discourse analysis was used to examine the role of state/s in the prose-
cution of an international arms dealer paying particular attention to the power of the state
in shaping the course of the trial, creating discourse about the crime itself, and the network
of actors both involved in the sting and the charges being prosecuted. In this instance
primary data were collected from the US court records of the trial which were accessed
through the online electronic filing system (PACER) and through the court reporting
service that provided the transcription for the trial. In addition, data were collected from
political statements about the case, as well as from world news media. The data were
arranged chronologically, and analyzed for themes and patterns that emerged.
A Brief History of the Case of Viktor Bout
Viktor Bout, made famous by the 2005 Hollywood movie Lord of War, and nicknamed
‘‘The Merchant of Death,’’ is a Russian born private arms dealer who was apprehended in
Bangkok, Thailand in 2008, for offenses related to arms trafficking. Most often associated
with brokering arms deals in Sub-Saharan Africa, the arms merchant has been accused of
‘‘making a career of arming bloody conflicts and supporting rogue regimes across multiple
continents, [and] even using the US banking system to secretly finance a private fleet of
aircraft’’ (Bharara as cited in Gendar 2010). Bout and his network are said to have supplied
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arms to many countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Sierra
Leone, Liberia, Afghanistan, and Bosnia (Control Arms 2006).
Bout has an established history of providing services to many countries for their
national security operations (Austin 2012; Common Dreams 2012), including the US. For
example, between 1996 and 2001 the accused operated out of the United Arab Emirates
(UAE) transporting weapons to Afghanistan to clients that included both the Taliban and
Al-Qaeda (Farrah and Braun 2007). Although the US was actively interested in Bout and
he was subject to scrutiny and sanctions from the UN (Brunwasser 2002), when the CIA
became privy to this information they chose not to take any action. Instead, because of
their relationship with the UAE they urged for increased banking controls, but they did so
‘‘delicately, not wanting to offend an ally in an already complicated relationship’’
(Pasternak and Braun 2002). Contributing to the lack of action against the arms merchant
were US intelligence priorities, that of counter-narcotics and the possibility that Al-Qaeda
would acquire weapons of mass destruction (Farrah and Braun 2007). This eclipsed Bout’s
involvement, especially as during this time period he was primarily viewed in his ‘‘African
context’’ (Wolosky in Farrah and Braun 2007: 143).
Bout is most often associated with the conflict in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and for
providing weapons to UNITA rebels in Angola earning him millions of dollars in diamonds
(Farrah and Braun 2007). Despite there being reports from private investigators, govern-
ment officials, non-governmental organizations, and various intelligence agencies
including the British and Americans, the information gathered on Bout and his weapons
pipeline was largely neglected. In the Angolan conflict the US allied itself with Savimbi
and his UNITA rebels, the same rebels that Bout was arming (The International Consor-
tium of Investigative Journalists 2002). As indicated by analysts at the CIA, ‘‘there was no
direction from senior policymakers at State or elsewhere in the Clinton administration to
target African weapons flows’’ (Farrah and Braun 2007: 96). As indicated by Johan
Peleman, a researcher working for the International Peace Information Service (IPIS) and
investigator of the arms merchant’s network, ‘‘Africa is not high on the agenda. There are
no classrooms of analysts and secret agents looking into the situation in Sierra Leone and
Liberia. These countries are not important enough on the national agendas of those states,
I’m afraid’’ (Peleman in Farrah and Braun 2007). Bout’s actions in Africa were not in
contradiction with US foreign policy interests and as a result he did not warrant their
attention. US interest however, changed dramatically after 9/11 when Bout became directly
involved in assisting the US in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Immediately prior to 9/11, the US State Department in conjunction with the National
Security Council had created a team for the purposes of apprehending Bout, but the
election of Bush in early 2001 re-focused priorities and the investigation into the arms
merchant dwindled and eventually ended after the attacks on New York (Farrah and Braun
2007). Although the Bush administration had been briefed on his arms network, specifi-
cally Condoleezza Rice the then National Security Adviser, when Bout moved back to
Russia in 2002 she decided that it would not be in the US’ political interests to pressure
Russia about arms trafficking as the US had ‘‘bigger fish to fry’’ (Landesman 2003). It is
during this same time period that the US began to use Bout and his network to transport
weapons to the Northern Alliance to arm them against the Taliban. Although this has been
vehemently denied by the US, European officials have reported that ‘‘Bout had his aircraft
near Afghanistan and made them available to the US efforts almost immediately. They
needed him and he had the only airlift capacity in the region…The deal was, if he flew, the
US would leave him alone’’ (Farrah and Braun 2007: 198).
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Bout was also contracted by the US to fly weapons to Iraq in 2003. Reports indicated
that many of the supplies for US troops were transported to Iraq by aircraft that were
owned and operated by the arms trader (Huband, Parker and Turner 2004). Further reports
connect Bout to private military companies Halliburton (then Vice President Dick Che-
ney’s former company) and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) through his companies
Aerocom/Air Mero (Madsen 2005) and Irbis Air (Spiegel Online International 2010). This
occurred despite there being a specific ban on dealings with the arms merchant issued by
the UN. US intelligence launched an investigation into Bout’s activities that confirmed that
he was flying supplies for the US Air Mobility Command—a major command for the US
Air Force (Farrah and Braun 2007).
In 2004, the Bush administration also exerted political pressure on other states to curb
their interest in Bout. For example, they pressured the UN to omit the arms trader from
sanctions despite there being considerable efforts from France to freeze his assets and an
Interpol warrant for his arrest. Furthermore, the Bush administration called on its ally the
UK, to remove Bout’s name from their list of individuals recommended for sanctions by
the UN (Fenzel 2007). There have also been reports that the US may have interfered with
Belgian efforts to apprehend the arms trader on a warrant they attempted to execute in
February 2002. Belgian authorities, somewhat clandestinely, had indicted Bout on charges
of illegal weapons trafficking and money laundering. As a result Interpol issued an arrest
warrant, and Belgian intelligence planned to execute the warrant after finding that Bout
was due to board a flight from Moldova to Greece. British intelligence services sent an
encrypted message to their superiors in London, informing them that the arms merchant
would be arrested when the plane landed in Athens. A short time after the message was
received in London, the plane changed course and disappeared off the radar. It was missing
for approximately 90 min before it reappeared and continued to Athens where it landed.
British and Greek special-forces, who had been waiting in Athens, boarded and searched
the plane. Bout was found not to be on board, but was later sighted by Belgian intelligence
in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Farrah and Braun 2007). In an interview with
Douglas Farrah and Stephen Braun, authors of the 2007 book Merchant of Death: Money,
guns, planes, and the man who makes war possible, European intelligence officials stated
‘‘There were only two intelligence services that could have decrypted the British trans-
mission in so short a time…The Russians and the Americans. And we know for sure it was
not the Russians.’’
Bout continued to fly supplies to Iraq for the US government until 2007. During this
time period there were sporadic news reports of his connections with the US, but CIA
intelligence did nothing to address the issue until 2004. In July 22, 2004, President Bush
issued an executive order labelling Bout a ‘‘specially designated person.’’ This explicitly
banned all US business with the arms trader and froze his assets. Yet this was largely
symbolic as the US continued to use Bout with estimates indicating that he was paid as
much as $60 million to fly US supplies into Iraq despite the ban (Farrah and Braun 2007).
There has been no official acknowledgement from the US of their connection to Bout,
instead they have maintained that any possible connection to him was made because of the
incompetence of US military contractors who hired the arms trader’s companies without
their knowledge. This explanation however, has been met with considerable skepticism,
especially as there were reports of direct contracts between Bout and the US military
(Braun in Silverstein 2007). As indicated by National Security Adviser Lee Wolosky who
had previously headed up the pre-9/11 taskforce to apprehend Bout, ‘‘It befuddles the mind
that the Pentagon would continue to work with an organization that both the Clinton and
Bush White Houses actively fought to dismantle’’ (Farrah and Braun 2007: 237).
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The US attitude toward the arms merchant changed when their intelligence agencies
found that he had been arming Hezbollah in their 2006 conflict with Lebanon. US intel-
ligence revealed that Bout had been spotted in a Hezbollah military camp and Israeli
intelligence indicated that he had been the one to supply them with Russian made armor-
piercing anti-tank missiles. Hezbollah has been designated a terrorist organization by both
the US and Israel, and has a long history of conflict with Israel—who is arguably the US’
strongest ally in the Middle East. Furthermore, in July 2006, it was also revealed that Bout
was supplying weapons to the Islamic Courts Union and Islamist militias in Somalia and
Eritrea, some of whom have been associated with Al-Qaeda (Farrah and Braun 2007).
Therefore, although Bout was assisting the US in Iraq, the US found that he was also
providing services for groups who they were actively or covertly fighting in the US-led war
on terror, and by continuing to use his services they were effectively undermining their
own global policies. Official statements from the White House differentiate between those
‘‘who are either with us or against us’’ (Bush in Farrah and Braun 2007: 11), and in the case
of Bout he was both. Shortly after these revelations, the US launched an operation to
apprehend the arms trafficker.
In March 2008, Bout was apprehended in a luxury Bangkok hotel by Thai police
following a 6 month long sting in cooperation with US intelligence who posed as members
of the Colombian Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) seeking to
broker an arms deal. The initial charges against Bout were arms trafficking in Thailand and
attempted mass murder (Falconer 2008), however shortly following his arrest both the US
and Russia began to exert political pressure on the Thai government to extradite him to
their respective countries for prosecution.
Almost 2 years later, Bout was extradited to the US in such an abrupt manner that
neither his wife nor his lawyer were made aware of the extradition until the morning after it
occurred. This elicited considerable criticism from Russia who accused the US of being
politically motivated and being blatantly unjust (The Moscow News 2010a). Despite these
accusations, Bout was prosecuted in a US court for the following four charges: (1) con-
spiracy to kill US nationals; (2) conspiracy to kill officers and employees of the US; (3)
conspiracy to acquire and use anti-aircraft missiles, and; (4) conspiracy to provide material
support to a foreign terrorist organization (the operatives posing as the FARC) (United
States v. Viktor Bout 2011). On April 5, 2012 Bout was sentenced to 25 years in prison by
a New York court (Katersky 2012). We now turn our attention to the sting as presented in
the data gleaned from the trial transcripts.
Operation Relentless
Operation Relentless was a complex sting involving many different individuals, police
authorities, states, spanning three continents. Beginning in late 2007, DEA informant Mike
Snow approached Andrew Smulian, a British born former associate of Viktor Bout, asking
him to contact the latter about weapons for his clients—the paid DEA operatives posing as
FARC. Smulian had not seen Bout for 10 years and was targeted by the DEA as he
was financially broke, strapped for cash, he was—he needed business. Snow offers
Smulian a once-in-a-lifetime deal, an all-cash arms delivery contract. Get paid,
deliver the arms, drop them in the middle of nowhere. Perfect opportunity for Viktor
Bout, who the DEA believed was a rogue arms dealer (United States v. Viktor Bout
2011: 300).
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Smulian reported that he had contacted Bout via email but the arms trader had turned down
the proposal reporting to Snow that Bout’s ‘‘situation [is] not so good’’ (United States v.
Viktor Bout 2011: 301). Bout had stated to Smulian that all his assets had been frozen by a
UN resolution that had been supported by the European Union, the US and Switzerland,
and he was no longer in the business of selling ‘‘gray items’’ (arms) and instead he was in
Russia selling real estate (United States v. Viktor Bout 2011: 301).
Two weeks following this exchange Smulian contacted Bout again, this time via email
through a more secure server in Iceland that was set up by Jon Gylfason, a friend/contact of
Smulian. There were several emails back and forth that finally resulted in Bout giving the
deal the ‘‘green light.’’ This prompted Smulian to meet with Snow, which they did on the
island of Curacao where he then learned the clients were the FARC (the DEA undercover
operatives). Having had a successful meeting in Curacao, Smulian then flew to Moscow to
meet with Bout and Mikhail Belozerosky where they discussed the deal further. Smulian
testified that it was during this meeting that Bout contacted Peter Michev, the owner of
KAS Engineering an arms manufacturer in Bulgaria and inquired about the availability of
weapons (United States v. Viktor Bout 2011: 1280). Smulian then left Moscow and flew to
Copenhagen where he again met with Mike Snow and Carlos Sagastume—one of the DEA
operatives pretending to be the FARC. It is during this meeting that Smulian provided
updates on his meeting with Bout and they began to talk about the possibility of meeting
face to face. The three of them decided that Romania would be a good location for the
meeting, so they flew there in anticipation of a face-to-face with Bout. They spent almost
3 weeks in Romania corresponding with the arms trader via email about a possible meeting
either in Romania or Montenegro. Bout did not show for the meeting, but instead arranged
to meet them in Thailand.
Smulian, Snow, and Sagastume then flew to Thailand where they were joined by
Ricardo Jardeno the second paid operative for the DEA posing as a high ranking official
within the FARC organization. Bout and his bodyguard met them in a hotel in Thailand
where, following a brief discussion, they were arrested. After securing the end user cer-
tificates (EUCs), the proposed deal would have resulted in the weapons being flown from
Bulgaria to Nicaragua in two planes sold by Bout to the FARC. From there they would
have been loaded onto a flight to Brazil and airdropped into Colombia. The payment of $5
million in cash was to be transported to Spain where Bout’s bodyguard Misha would
receive it (United States v. Viktor Bout 2011).
Here we are not debating Bout’s guilt, rather we are arguing that this case reaffirms the
focus of neo-liberal crime control policies as being highly individualistic notwithstanding
the large number of actors involved in the proposed arms trafficking deal and the sting
itself. Despite this, the prosecution argued that Bout had ‘‘mastery of all facets of an illegal
weapons deal’’ (United States v. Viktor Bout 2011: 281), and that it is he, and he alone that
was going to provide the weapons, EUCs (by flying to Nicaragua to obtain them), contracts
necessary to transport the weapons, the transportation (the cargo planes), and he was also
able to ensure their delivery. Like crime control efforts in general, such as the ‘War on
Drugs’ (Parenti 2008), the torture at Abu Ghraib (Smeulers and van Niekerk 2009), and the
pirates of Somalia (Collins 2014), the focus on a singular or few ‘‘bad apple/s’’ shifts focus
away from the broader political and economic context in which the crime occurs. This
leaves states free of further scrutiny to pursue their own economic and political interests,
which includes the US continued use of illegal arms brokers, and the maintenance of an
arms market that escapes oversight.
As indicated above there were many other actors involved in the proposed deal
including the arms manufacturer in Bulgaria, arms broker Peter Michev, Bout’s bodyguard
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Misha, Jon Gylfason in Iceland who set up the secure email server, Paul Popov, another
associate of Bout’s from Moldova where Bout was keeping an Antonov 12 cargo plane
who was mentioned in conjunction with transporting the weapons, Jean-Bernard Lasnaud
identified during the trial as another arms dealer in Paris who had access to airplanes, and
even Russian President Putin who was mentioned by Sagastume. In addressing the court,
Sagastume stated that Bout,
Has total protection of the boss….I understood could be referring to the president of
Russia.
Q. Putin, correct, that’s the name?
A. Yes (United States v. Viktor Bout 2011: 968).
It becomes clear that the sting was designed for the sole purpose of arresting and
prosecuting Bout, and not about the larger arms trafficking network. This hyper-
individualistic focus acts to publically appease those focused on controlling arms
trafficking, while distracting attention away from state complicity in the crime.
This is further supported by the treatment of the other actors swept up in the sting, such
as Bout’s bodyguard Gylfason, and Michev who were quickly discarded by the authorities.
For example, Bout’s bodyguard having attended the meeting at the Sofitel hotel in Thai-
land was arrested by the DEA and the Royal Thai police. He was detained and briefly
questioned, but shortly afterwards he was given approximately 20 US dollars in Thai Baht
and told to leave Thailand immediately (United States v. Viktor Bout 2011). Furthermore,
Michev the arms manufacturer did not testify at the trial and did not face any criminal
prosecution. This is surprising as technically he was the weapons manufacturer and sup-
plier, whereas Bout involvement centered on the logistics of transporting the arms. By
focusing on one individual, the state is able to maintain legitimacy and appease the larger
population by showing they are active in their efforts to control the crime.
Also, of particular interest are the operatives who posed as the FARC. Both had
extensive criminal histories including being engaged in the trafficking of cocaine. Prior to
being engaged in the drugs business one of the operatives was an officer in the Guatemalan
army, and the other was a former Colombian military officer. Both had extensive histories
of human rights violations associated with how they had pursued and treated guerillas in
Colombia. It was the operatives who approached the US offering their services in exchange
for immunity from prosecution and moving their families to the US. The US not only
agreed, but they had both been paid upwards of $8 million for their work for the DEA
(Austin 2012). Here, the US used ‘‘former cocaine traffickers in order to bring Viktor Bout
to justice’’ (Austin 2012). The US justified their use of the agents by asserting that the
operation was too dangerous for DEA field agents. This is especially ironic considering
peace researchers and human rights investigations have long been engaged in collecting
evidence of Bout’s illicit arms trade—dating back to the mid-1990s (Farrah and Braun
2007)—operating on small budgets and without the aid of cocaine traffickers (Austin
2012).
The only other person prosecuted by the US was Andrew Smulian. He was arrested on
the same four charges as Bout, but very early on agreed to help the US in their case against
Bout and secured a cooperation agreement. Smulian pled guilty to the charges against him
in July 2008 and was sentenced after the completion of the case against Bout. During
Smulian’s sentencing hearing the Judge took his cooperation into account and he was
sentenced to only 5 years (the minimum sentence for the four charges was 25 years). As
Smulian had been held in custody since his arrest in 2008, he had already served over
4 years, so essentially he received a sentence of time served. During the sentencing hearing
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the Judge (the same Judge that presided over Bout’s trial) said that Smulian ‘‘‘‘was simply
a financially vulnerable, out of work’’ air transporter who had known Mr. Bout…There was
no evidence…that had Mr. Smulian not been approached in the sting, he would ever ‘‘have
been involved with terrorism’’’’ (Schiendlin in Weiser and Moynihan 2012). Ironically, the
same could have been said of Bout, as at the beginning of the sting he repeatedly rejected
the proposed weapons deal and said he could not be involved, so much so, that at one point
Smulian suggested to Snow that he buy the weapons directly from KAS manufacturing
himself expressing to the agents that he was comfortable acting alone, ‘‘I feel OK myself
about it. I don’t have a problem. If you guys are OK with it, then we’ll go’’ (United States
v. Viktor Bout 2011: 1427). The DEA rejected Smulian’s offer as this would have cut
Viktor Bout out of the transaction completely.
As indicated in the court transcripts, from the very beginning Bout is characterized as
being solely responsible for ‘‘all facets of an illegal weapons deal’’ (United States v. Viktor
Bout 2011: 281), and how operating ‘‘on his own, Bout had worked out a coverup for the
deal’’ (United States v. Viktor Bout 2011: 290). Bout is effectively separated from the
other actors in the network, who because of the US’ blind focus on Bout are afforded
plausible deniability for their involvement in the crime. This gives the appearance that the
US is pursing justice by prosecuting the crime of international arms trafficking, appeasing
the call for greater crime control, but also allowing for state parties to protect their own
legitimacy and self-interests. In accordance with this individualistic approach was the US
use of terrorism charges.
The terrorism charges were used as a tool by the US to claim jurisdiction over Bout, and
simultaneously heightened security and control over access to not only Bout himself, but to
the information in the case. This was demonstrated when Bout was escorted from his Thai
prison to his plane,
Thai police commandos in full combat gear and balaclavas accompanied Bout from
prison to the asphalt at Don Muang airport in Bangkok. At least half a dozen
Americans, some wearing jackets identifying them as members of the US Drug
Enforcement Agency, ushered Bout aboard a chartered jet. Bout wore a bulletproof
vest, a helmet and a blue tracksuit (The Guardian 2008).
The dramatic ‘‘perp walk’’ that was disseminated by media globally, served to heightened
the focus on Bout as a very threatening and dangerous individual and support US action in
holding him accountable for his crimes.
Additionally, the justification used by the US for the charges of terrorism was built
around two factors. The first was the US designation of the FARC as a terrorist organi-
zation in 1997 (US Department of State 2014), and the second revolved around statements
made by Bout to the undercover operatives. Designating an individual a terrorist is a means
for states to exercise extra-jurisdictional power over an individual, state or region beyond
its own borders (Singh and Bedi 2012). This has been done in other notable instances, with
regards to non-legal detentions at Guantanamo Bay (Butler 2003), targeted killings by
drones (Rothe and Collins 2014), and even through the conflation of piracy with terrorism
as it relates to the international response to piracy in Somalia (Collins 2014). This is a
common tactic of states in a post-9/11 world, where terrorism legislation coupled with the
extension of executive power has provided the justification for the extension of state power
over issues that pose a threat to international peace and security. In this particular case
however, the FARC are not designated a terrorist organization by Russia (The Supreme
Court of the Russian Federation 2014), or by Thailand (Public Prosecutor v. Viktor Bout
2009), yet the US used this charge as leverage for extradition from Thailand to the US.
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Interestingly, for the Thai government to agree to extradition to the US, they first had to
establish that the evidence was sufficient to justify a detention order and that the offense
committed was extraditable. This was problematic for the US as the Thai court had to find
that the offense that Bout was accused of would result in a sentence punishable by 1 year
or more in both jurisdictions. Although the Thai court acknowledged that the charges
would be punishable under US law for a year or more, they also found there was no
evidence to support the assertion that the FARC would use the weapons that they bought
from Bout to attack US interests in Colombia. This meant that the Thai court found charges
against Bout to be political and as a result they did not meet the criteria for extradition.
Furthermore, they found that the US charges against Bout were not punishable under Thai
law as they were committed against an interest outside of Thailand (Public Prosecutor v.
Viktor Bout 2009). Accordingly, Bout should not have been extradited to the US.
The second factor influencing the terrorism charges against Bout was based on testi-
mony from the operatives posing as FARC, asserting that Bout not only knew the FARC
planned to kill US soldiers and personnel with the weapons he was supplying, but he allied
himself with their cause. The prosecution asserted that Bout,
was presented with an opportunity to put a multi-million dollar arsenal of weapons
and explosives into the hands of men who told him that they needed it to kill
American pilots. And he jumped at the opportunity. He had the experience to do it,
he had the means to do it, he had the will to do it. And he agreed to do it (United
States v. Viktor Bout 2011: 280).
In speaking to the press, US Attorney Preet Bharara said ‘‘No one should ever think he can
plot to kill Americans with impunity’’ (Bharara in The Nation 2010). However, when the
context of the exchange between the undercover operatives and Bout is revealed, it is paid
operative Ricardo Jardenero who initiates the conversations about killing Americans.
During the last meeting in Thailand Sagasume testifies to the exchange between Jardenero
and Bout,
Ricardo said we want to knock down those American sons of bitches, because we’re
tired—unintelligible—kill them and kick them out of my country. The problem now
is in Colombia –unintelligible—Colombia, they don’t care where they go anymore.
They go here, they go there, they go wherever they want. Why. And in response, Mr.
Bout said yes, yes, yes. They act as if—as if it was their home.
Q. Who did you understand him to be referring to there?
A. He was referring to the Americans.
Q. Going to page 80, line 6. Ricardo said: The FARC has—the FARC has been
fighting for 46 years. I wasn’t born with the war began. I was a baby when this
started. Now Raul Reyes was a great man, he was my teacher. But, man, the
important thing for us is, what did Ricardo do after saying that?
A. Ricardo was referring to the loss of Commander Reyes, and afterwards he was
doing something like—like he felt the loss of the Commander.
Q. Did he do anything at that time?
A. He was grabbing his chest.
Q. At the beginning of line 1, Ricardo said for the better, we make the decision, we
could die and it doesn’t matter because it is for—for our people. But we don’t want
anymore gringos in our mother country. Now we’re going to fight. He then con-
tinues. In response in line 2, Mr. Bout said: We are going to do it (United States v.
Viktor Bout 2011: 878–879).
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Bout agrees with Ricardo’s assessment of his own cause and situation, but Bout never
directly says he wants to kill Americans, and it is only after several outbursts from
Jardenero that Bout begins to convey agreement. Bout is reacting to a conversation
initiated by someone he views to be a potential client. Furthermore, the operative is acting
under the specific instructions from the DEA to speak to the killing of Americans with
Bout, as indicated by the Operation Specialist in charge of the investigation, Agent Brown,
Q. And in your pursuit of Viktor Bout, the DEA operatives and yourself devised a
plan to inject the element—inject the element of killing Americans into this arms
deal, correct?
A. That was part of the scenario, yes, very clear.
Q. And you did that so that the United States would gain jurisdiction over Viktor
Bout and extradite him to this country to stand prosecution, correct?
A. That we said to kill Americans. We made it perfectly clear throughout the
investigation what the intention of these individuals were.
Q. But my question is very simple, I believe, you did that so that United States would
get jurisdiction over Viktor Bout so he could be extradited and prosecuted in this
country?
A. We created an investigation—…A. It was a scenario, it was a sting operation, yes, it’s common.
Q. So that he could be extradited and prosecuted in the United States?
A. If there was evidence enough for a U.S. court do that, yes (United States v. Viktor
Bout 2011: 543–544).
It therefore appears that the DEA operatives were paid to express anti-American sentiment
and to speak to Bout about their intent to kill Americans as a strategy to not only to
facilitate his extradition to the US for prosecution, but as a strategy to emphasize the threat
that Bout poses to the US and the rest of the world.
The characterization of Bout as being threatening, not only to the US but to interna-
tional peace and security, was evident in the US media coverage of Bout’s arrest and
prosecution. Characterized as ‘‘one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers’’ and
‘‘Africa’s chief merchant of death’’ (Mydans and Bonner 2008: 1), he was described as the
‘‘FedEx of arms dealers’’ (Eggen 2008: A01), ‘‘munitions monster’’ (Zambito 2008: 6), as
being aligned with ‘‘Afghan warlords and then the Taliban and Al Qaeda’’ (The Moscow
News 2008: 6), and as heading a network described as ‘‘The McDonald’s of arms traf-
ficking’’ (Freeze 2008: A3). Repeatedly referred to as the ‘‘Lord of War’’ by numerous
media outlets, Western news coverage of the story focused on Bout being caught supplying
weapons to a terrorist organization (Johnston and Mydans 2008; Eggen 2008; Freeze 2008)
as well as his history of fueling deadly conflicts in Africa (Campbell and MacKinnon
2008). He was also repeatedly described as ‘‘former KGB,’’ (Yaniv and Siemaszko 2010:
20), ‘‘former Soviet Air Force officer’’ (Fuller 2010: 4) with connections to ‘‘leftist guerilla
groups’’ (Hutchinson 2010: 19), and ‘‘Marxist-inspired guerilla arm[ies]’’ (The Irish Times
2011: 11). Bout was clearly portrayed as the worst of all criminals, and was even likened in
several newspapers to some of the US’ most high profile criminal defendants, ‘‘Bernie
Madoff and the head of Gambino mafia clan John Gotti’’ (The Moscow News 2010a).
In contrast Russian coverage of the arrest and prosecution painted a very different picture.
Bout was described as being a ‘‘suspected’’ (The Moscow News 2010b), or an ‘‘alleged’’
(The Moscow News 2008) arms trafficker. He was portrayed as a ‘‘Russian army officer’’
(Kozin 2010), a ‘‘businessman’’ (ITAR-TASS 2010), an ‘‘ordinary citizen who found
himself in difficult conditions abroad’’ (Interfax 2010). Bout also garnered considerable
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support from the Russian government who were described as having ‘‘raced like bears to
honey’’ to defend him against the charges (Sidorov 2010). Russian officials described the
sting operation as ‘‘prejudice,’’ ‘‘suspicious,’’ akin to characterizing it as ‘‘sheer murkiness’’
(Editorial 2010a), and the extradition as ‘‘illegal’’ (The Moscow News 2010c). Furthermore,
non-Western media coverage providedmore quotations fromBout himself who protested his
innocence and likened his arrest to ‘‘a plot for a Hollywood action movie’’ (Bout in
Abdullaev 2008). Bout also repeatedly asserted that he is a victim of ‘‘a political chase that
has lasted many years’’ (Bout in Kozin 2010), and is subject to a justice system that is ‘‘akin
to medieval witch-hunt trials of inquisition’’ (ITAR-TASS 2012). As noted in an Editorial
(2010b) in The Moscow News ‘‘For the Western press, Bout is seen as a bogeyman echo of
Ronald Reagan’s ‘Evil Empire’, while in the Russian media Bout is widely seen as a victim
of a vindictive CIA.’’
In summary, there were seven witnesses that testified for the prosecution in the case
against Viktor Bout, including the DEA Agent in charge of the operation, two paid DEA
operatives, a computer forensic examiner also employed by the DEA, a co-conspirator
turned state witness, and two individuals who had previously been employed by Bout’s
companies in the late 1990s. The prosecution argued that Bout entered into a transaction
with the DEA informants whom he believed to be high ranking members of the FARC,
with the goal of providing them with 700–800 antiaircraft (or surface to air) missiles, 5000
AK47s, air transportation for the weaponry (two cargo planes), and the requisite EUCs
necessary for transportation.
There were no witnesses for the defense, something that surprised the presiding Judge
who said ‘‘I did not realize there would be no defense case’’ (United States v. Viktor Bout
2011: 841). Instead, the defense case focused on providing contradictory explanations to
the prosecution’s assertions to demonstrate reasonable doubt. For example, the defense
argued that Bout did not intend to sell weapons to the FARC, that he repeatedly evaded
meeting with them, and when he finally agreed to meet with them no contract for the sale
of weapons was made. Furthermore, the defense argued that Bout intended to sell the
operatives two air cargo planes instead of weapons, and that it was one of the operatives
posing as a FARC Commander who spoke about killing Americans on the instruction of
the DEA, not Viktor Bout.
What is Really Driving The Prosecution?
By examining the weapons deals that Bout had previously been involved with in con-
junction with the US prosecution, it becomes apparent that the US interest in Bout coin-
cides with their larger geopolitical and economic interests. The sting and subsequent
prosecution of Bout serves to appease the need for crime control, but also ensures the
generation and maintenance of the existing open arms market that serves the very states
engaged as controllers of the crime of arms trafficking. States are able to use covert
military planning, to access and execute arms trafficking deals that serve their own political
and economic interests, while simultaneously keeping it hidden from citizens and other
global leaders. By controlling the prosecution of Bout, the US can continue to perpetuate,
and even celebrate its role as being at the forefront of tackling international crime by
bringing a notorious international criminal to ‘‘justice.’’ In doing so, they can control the
flow of information made public, specifically as it relates to their own complicity in the
crime. By propagating understandings of Bout as being associated with terrorists and being
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solely responsible for numerous conflicts across the world, the US has effectively separated
their behavior from the crime. This again serves state interests as this characterization of
Bout legitimizes the heavy-handed approach from the US in exerting pressure on Thailand
to extradite him to the US, charge him with serious charges irrespective of the strength of
their evidence, and then sentence him to prison for 25 years.
It was not until Bout lost all utility to the US, and perhaps became a threat to their global
political and economic interests, that they chose to pursue a case against him. Although his
arrest was framed as the product of an elaborate sting investigation, its timing was not
accidental. Rather, and as indicated by Christopher Walker in an interview with Farrah and
Braun (2007) ‘‘If the government really wanted him bad they could have come up with a
pretext and seized his planes’’ at an earlier date. In framing the case against Bout as a
cooperative product of varying law enforcement agencies situated across the globe, the
gravity of the charges against Bout are constructed as credible, and little political and
media attention is paid to the logistics of the sting itself—such as the US use of paid
undercover operatives with extensive criminal histories for drug offenses and human rights
violations.
Furthermore, considering the vast array of Bout’s clients, it is unlikely he had particular
allegiances to one group, client, or customer. It is also somewhat of a stretch to suggest he
is aligned with a particular client’s causes or ideologies—the key motivating factor for an
act of terrorism. This argument gathers strength considering that just over a year prior to
Bout’s arrest he was providing transportation and arms for the US military, the very target
of the FARC as indicated to Bout during the sting. We suggest, that like the states that
utilize Bout’s services, it is economics that provide the motivation for Bout, as he has
reaped fortunes from his deals across the globe with his corporate earnings estimated to be
in the hundreds of millions (Farrah and Braun 2007).
Conclusion
Here we have highlighted some of the hypocrisies in the case against Viktor Bout. We are
not debating the serious harm that has been caused by arms deals that Bout has been
involved with, however, the US case against Bout serves as a reminder of the hyper-
individualistic nature of neo-liberal crime control policies. Playing up Bout’s notoriety, the
US focus was on the threat Bout posed to international security, his active involvement
with terrorism, and his supposed complicity in wanting to kill Americans. This distracts
both public and political attention away from Bout’s connection to the US, allowing them
to deny their involvement and maintain their agenda of fighting for international peace and
security in the ‘‘global war on terrorism’’ (Chossudovsky 2013). It also supports the
ongoing emphasis of ‘crime control’ and ‘crime prevention’ with the focus on a few select-
disposable-individuals rather than the broader structure that facilitates and encourages
criminality.
After all, relations with Bout soured when the US found that Bout was not only assisting
in US foreign policy interests, but was simultaneously arming their ‘‘enemies.’’ Bout, albeit
a cog in a larger machine, is assigned blame for the behavior of a network of actors, all of
whom collectively make arms trafficking possible and benefit from the maintenance of an
accessible illegal arms market—both economically and politically. Bout, very publically,
has become the ‘‘bad apple,’’ and his prosecution not only shifts focus away from the
reality of the crime, but also serves US state interests. These interests include their
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utilization and involvement with an international arms broker who was also working with
other groups whose political interests counter those of the US, the maintenance of state
legitimacy as a controller of crime, and the preservation of an illegal arms market that
allows for covert interactions in a global economic system that is characterized by free
market enterprise and the acquisition of capital. Ironically, US state involvement as both a
facilitator and controller of arms trafficking crime, has suppressed the real nature of the
offense which includes their own culpability. In 2013, the international political com-
munity renewed efforts to control and regulate the trade of weapons, including small arms,
by negotiating the multinational Arms Trade Treaty which entered into force on December
24, 2014. To date 130 member states have signed the treaty and 69 have ratified it. Despite
this effort however, the problem remains that until states acknowledge their involvement in
arms trafficking networks, targeting specific individuals for prosecution will not prevent
the illicit trafficking of arms.
Acknowledgments This work was supported by the School of Justice Studies Research Program atEastern Kentucky University. We would like to thank both Dr. Dawn Rothe and Dr. Gary Potter for theirvaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this paper.
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