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World's No. 1 Arms Empire Springs Leak
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
By Douglas Farah
The Washington Post

Ruprah's lawyer, Luc de Temmerman, said in a written statement that his client engaged only in legal activities in Africa. He acknowledged that Bout and Ruprah knew each other, but he said they were not in business together.

U.S. and European law enforcement officials say they have scored an important advance in their efforts to disrupt what some officials describe as the biggest weapons-trafficking network in the world, responsible for supplying the Taliban and terrorist groups from al-Qaida in Afghanistan to the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines as well as rebel forces in Africa.

For the past three years, U.S. intelligence agencies covertly have been trying to thwart the sprawling arms empire of Victor Bout, a former Soviet military officer whose operation is based in the United Arab Emirates, according to U.S. and European officials. Bout's network is unique, U.S., British and U.N. investigators said, because of its ability to deliver sophisticated weapons systems virtually anywhere in the world.

A suspected top associate of Bout is under arrest in Belgium, and investigators say he is providing fresh, inside information on how the arms network functions.

Bout long has been suspected of supplying weapons to the Taliban, but U.S. and European officials said intelligence gathered in recent months in Afghanistan and elsewhere has provided details about his flights and deliveries in the months before the attacks Sept. 11. The intelligence suggests he was flying weapons into Afghanistan more recently than had been believed, said U.S. and U.N. officials.

Bout specialized in breaking arms embargoes around the world, according to four U.N. Security Council reports on weapons trafficking issued between December 2000 and January. His activities also were described in interviews with U.S., British and U.N. investigators. He traffics almost exclusively in weapons bought in the former Soviet bloc, chiefly Bulgaria and Romania, officials said.

“There are a lot of people who can deliver arms to Africa or Afghanistan, but you can count on one hand those who can deliver major weapons systems rapidly,” said Lee S. Wolosky, a former National Security Council official who led an interagency effort to shut down Bout's operations during the last two years of the Clinton administration. “Victor Bout is at the top of that list.”

* Bout's Associate Secretly Contacted U.S.
* Ruprah, Bout Banned From International Travel
(More: The Tampa Tribune Online News Source)
2002 © The Washington Post.

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