Viktor Anatolyevich Bout (; Russian: Ви́ктор Анато́льевич Бут; born 13 January 1967) is a Russian arms dealer. A weapons manufacturer and former Soviet military translator, he used his multiple companies to smuggle arms from Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East during the 1990s and early 2000s. Bout gained the nicknames the "Merchant of Death" and "Sanctions Buster" after British minister Peter Hain read a report to the United Nations in 2003 on Bout's wide-reaching operations, extensive clientele, and willingness to bypass embargoes.
In a US sting operation Bout was arrested in 2008 in Thailand on terrorism charges by the Royal Thai Police in cooperation with American authorities and Interpol. The United States Ambassador to Thailand Eric G. John requested his extradition to the United States, which was eventually mandated by the Thai High Court in 2010. Bout was accused of intending to sell arms to a United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informer pretending to represent the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for use against American forces in Colombia, but Bout denied...
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