The United States is seeking the extradition of suspected Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, but he will remain in Thailand pending an investigation into whether he used the Southeast Asian nation as a base to negotiate arms deals, officials said Friday. 
Bout, 41, dubbed "The Merchant of Death" for supplying weapons for bloody conflicts in Africa, was arrested at a Bangkok hotel on Thursday, just hours after flying into the country from Moscow, Thai police said. He faces up to 10 years in prison in Thailand if found guilty on charges of procuring weapons for terrorists, police Lt. Gen. Aidsorn Nontree told a news conference. Police believe he was planning to negotiate arms deals in Thailand. Thai authorities issued an arrest warrant for Bout at the request of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "We do intend to extradite him," Thomas Pasquarello, regional director of the DEA, told the news conference. But the timing still has "to be worked out between the two nations." Handcuffed and expressionless, Bout was paraded before journalists at the news conference but refused to answer questions.
"He is called the 'Merchant of Death' and 'Man of War' for a reason," Pasquerello said. Regarded as one of the world's most wanted arms traffickers, Bout's list of alleged customers in Africa includes former dictator Charles Taylor of Liberia, the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the late dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, now known as Congo, and both sides of the civil war in Angola.
One of his companies also served as a subcontractor involved in transporting U.S. military personnel and private U.S. contractors in Iraq, according to a book about Bout by journalists Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun published last year.
The 2007 book about Bout, "Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible," also says that a plane in Bout's fleet made several airdrops of weapons to FARC guerrillas between December 1998 and April 1999.
It says the flights dropped about 10,000 weapons to the rebels, "enabling them to greatly enhance their military capabilities." Bout has been investigated by police in several countries, but has never been prosecuted for arms dealing.
In 2005, the U.S. Treasury Department said "Bout has the capacity to transport tanks, helicopters and weapons by the tons to virtually any point in the world. The arms he has sold or brokered has helped fuel conflicts and support U.N.-sanctioned regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan." U.N. reports say he set up a network of more than 50 aircraft around the world, owned by shadowy companies with names such as Bukavu Aviation Transport, Business Air Services and Great Lakes Business Co.
A U.N. travel ban imposed on Bout that was still current as of last November said he supported former Liberian President Charles Taylor's regime in efforts to destabilize Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds, which became known as "blood diamonds" for the warring they inspired. In October 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush issued an executive order freezing the assets of Bout and several associates and warlords in Congo and barring Americans from doing business with them. They were accused of violating international laws involving targeting of children or violating a ban on sales of military equipment to Congo. Bout had been under similar sanctions since 2004. A U.S. Treasury sanctions announcement in 2005 said air transport companies controlled by Bout "played a key role in supplying arms to Charles Taylor's regime in Liberia and the Sierra Leone rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front," both of which were accused of conducting atrocities against civilians. "In exchange for these supplies, Bout received payment from Liberia's international ship registry as well as diamonds and other valuable commodities acquired illegally by Taylor's associates and the RUF," it said.
Liberia's maritime registry provides a "flag of convenience" for shipping companies the world over, and is a major legitimate source of revenue for the country.
In 2002, Belgium issued an international arrest warrant through Interpol, the international police agency, on charges of money-laundering and criminal conspiracy.
Bout won his nickname in November 2000, when Peter Hain, then Britain's Cabinet minister for African affairs, called him "the chief sanctions-buster" flouting U.N. arms embargoes against warring parties in Angola and Sierra Leone and dubbed him "a merchant of death." Bout is believed to have served in an air transport outfit of the Russian military until about 1991. He built his business on the huge drawdown of weapons and aircraft in the communist Eastern bloc as the Cold War
After Bout's arrest, U.S. federal authorities in New York 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. Thai police Col. Petcharat Sengchai said a second suspect identified as Andrew Smulian was also being sought. 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 (£á3.26 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.
Bout's best-documented activities have been in Central and West Africa, where he has been accused of funneling weapons since the early 1990s. Bout's business, centered around a fleet of transport aircraft owned and operated by several closely held companies, also reportedly involved him in supplying warring parties in Afghanistan before the 2001 fall of the Taliban.
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