Highlights from New Yorker profile of Viktor Bout

Nicholas Schmidle profiles Viktor Bout in the New Yorker this week [gated link].

Schmidle is at his best when describing the sting operation in Thailand.  We learn that Bout researched the FARC before the meeting with undercover DEA agents, and arrived in Thailand with a copy of Lonely Planet: Colombia.  One of the undercover agents was a former cocaine smuggler from Guatemala who regularly provides these types of services to the DEA, and for a related sting received $7 million from the State Department.  After Thailand agreed to extradite Bout to the US, the Americans were so worried the Russians would try to free or assassinate Bout that they arranged for a decoy convoy to go from the prison to the Bangkok airport, and then actually transported Bout to a military airport in a smaller convoy.

And we learn some fun facts about Bout’s New York trial.  The judge prohibited either side from saying “Rwanda” or “Libya,” as she deemed these “buzz-words.”  Bout’s lead lawyer comes across as not very skilled, inappropriately colloquial, unnecessarily dramatic, and weak in his use of analogies.

Schmidle interviewed Bout in prison several times for this story.  Bout denied working with Charles Taylor.