Who is Viktor Bout, arms dealer linked to swap for Americans held by Moscow?

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Who is Viktor Bout, arms dealer linked to swap for Americans held by Moscow?
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All you need to know about the Russian arms dealer jailed in the US.

Variously dubbed “the merchant of death” and “the sanctions buster” for his ability to get around arms embargoes, Bout, 55, was one of the world’s most wanted men prior to his 2008 arrest on multiple charges related to arms trafficking.

A gifted linguist, who later used his reported command of English, French, Portuguese, Arabic and Persian to build his international arms empire, Bout reportedly attended the Dushanbe Esperanto club as a young boy, becoming fluent in the artificial language. From a base in the Gulf emirate of Sharjah, he interwove his arms trafficking empire with a seemingly innocuous logistics business, always insisting when queried that he was a legitimate entrepreneur with respectable clients and no case to answer.

It said Bout supplied guns to former Liberian President and warlord Charles Taylor, now serving a 50-year prison term for murder, rape and terrorism, to various Congolese factions, and to Philippine Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf. Bout was tried on the charges related to FARC, which he denied, and in 2012 was convicted and sentenced by a court in Manhattan to 25 years in prison, the minimum sentence possible.On July 27, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had made"a substantial offer" to Russia to release Women's National Basketball Association star Brittney Griner and ex-U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.

Lavrov has said Bout's extradition from Thailand was"a glaring injustice" and suggested he was innocent.

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