THE Russian arms dealer dubbed ‘The Merchant of Death’ is selling guns to the Houthis, reports claim.
Viktor Bout, the weapons seller who inspired the film Lord of War, has returned to his old trade with UK cargo ships now in the firing line.
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The 57-year-old was released by the US in 2022 after he was slapped with a 25-year sentence in 2011 for conspiracy to kill US citizens and officials.
Bout was freed in exchange for US basketball player Brittney Griner, who had been jailed in Russia for nine years due to possession of hash oil.
The Wall Street Journal now reports he is trying to broker the sale of guns to the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.
The militants’ officials went to Moscow in August to negotiate the purchase of $10m (£7.7m) worth of weapons and met Bout.
The Houthis have been targeting shipping in the Red Sea, seizing and sinking cargo ships as part of Iran’s wars in the Middle East.
Bout is reportedly looking to sell them small arms weapons such as rifles and grenades, rather than anti-ship missiles or drones.
They are yet to be delivered but could be used when the militants board ships to seize them.
Moscow and Tehran have been growing closer with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Putin has turned to the Ayatollah as he desperately needs more ammunition as the Ukrainians smash his armies.
Since returning to Russia, Bout became a celebrity and was elected as a far-right politician in a regional legislature.
Recent footage shows the Houthis launching an explosive drone and striking a British oil tanker.
The Houthi group shared the clip of a big explosion near the side of the Cordelia Moon, which damaged its port side tank and covered it in clouds of smoke.
Last November, 25 forgotten sailors of the hijacked British-Israeli Galaxy Leader cargo ship were taken captive by the Houthi pirates.
The $50million vessel was hijacked by the Iran-sponsored Houthi rebels in the Red Sea on November 19.
Its entire international crew were taken hostage in what the gunmen clinging to the sides of a helicopter screamed was revenge for Israel’s war in Gaza.
The car carrier was pulled back to Hodeidah in the Houthi-controlled north of Yemen as a trophy to taunt the West and supporters of the militants flocked to the site to share in the spoils of war.
Bout exploited the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s and ran a fleet of planes, shipping ammunition to war-torn countries in Africa.
Like Putin, Bout was an intelligence officer, but he shifted to transporting weapons exploiting the new Russian Federation.
He’s also accused of supplying ammunition to brutal regimes and warlords.
In 2011, Bout was convicted on charges of conspiring to kill American citizens and officers.
He was also found guilty of providing resources in the form of weapons to a foreign terrorist organization.
Attorney Preet Bharara said: “He aimed to sell those weapons to terrorists for the purpose of killing Americans.”
Juan Zarate, who served as the deputy national security advisor for combatting terrorism during the Bush Administration, described Bout as a “singular international criminal”.
Merchant of Death’s prisoner swap
Viktor Bout was traded by the US in a one-for-one prisoner swap with Russia for WNBA star Brittney Griner in 2022.
Griner was held for months in a Russian prison after being convicted of drug charges after a small amount of hashish oil was found in vape cartridges.
Griner was heading back to New York in February 2022 when she was stopped at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport after a scan revealed that she had cartridges containing liquid with hashish oil.
Bout was serving a 25-year prison sentence in the states after being convicted by a federal court in 2011 for conspiracy to kill US citizens and officials.
US President Joe Biden addressed the US from the White House alongside VP Harris and Griner’s wife Cherelle, saying “this was a day we’d worked for for a long time.”
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