‘Merchant of Death’ arrested over arms deals

BANGKOK, Thailand - A Russian businessman dubbed the "Merchant of Death" for supplying weapons for bloody conflicts in Africa was arrested in Thailand on Thursday for allegedly conspiring to smuggle guns to Colombia's powerful left-wing guerrillas.

Viktor Bout, 41, was arrested at U.S. request at his hotel in Bangkok, said police Lt. Gen. Pongpat Chayapan, head of the Crime Suppression Bureau.

Bout was generally believed to be a model for the arms dealer portrayed by Nicholas Cage in the 2005 movie "Lord of War."

Pongpat said police executed a warrant from a Thai court, based on a warrant issued in the United States at the request of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

In New York, federal authorities unsealed a criminal complaint charging that Bout conspired to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons, including 100 surface-to-air missiles and armor-piercing rockets, that he thought were going to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

The FARC has been fighting Colombia's government for more than four decades, and funds itself largely through the cocaine trade and kidnapping for ransom.

He said six other people, including another Russian, who were with Bout were also detained for interrogation. Thai police received information from the DEA that Bout and another man came to Thailand around January to do an arms deal with a Latin American rebel group, he added.

Thai police Col. Petcharat Sengchai said a second suspect identified as Andrew Smulian was also being sought.

A law enforcement official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information, said there was no link between Bout's arrest and the weekend capture by Colombian troops of a computer belonging to a top FARC leader who was killed in a raid on one of the guerrillas' bases in Ecuador.

The DEA complaint filed in New York federal court said Bout's arrest stemmed from a sting operation over several months in which DEA agents posing as FARC rebels negotiated with Bout for the purchase and delivery of millions of dollars (euros) of armaments and surface-to-air missiles.

In New York, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia would not say how much the weapons involved in the alleged deal were worth but said the cost of transporting them alone was set at $5 million. He said the weapons were to be parachuted to FARC fighters in Colombian territory.

The arrest "marks the end of the reign of one of the world's most wanted arms traffickers," Garcia said.

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