More Small Steps on Viktor Bout
By Douglas Farah
Today the U.S. Treasury Department took another step to crimp the style of Russian weapons trafficker Viktor Bout.
The OFAC freezing action of seven companies and three individuals in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) followed yesterday's similar action by the United Nations Security Council and is aimed in part and restricting Bout's ability to continue to illicitly move weapons to African war zones.
The OFAC statement said that "Three of the designated firms have been found to be owned or controlled by, or acting for or on behalf of, Viktor Bout, an international arms dealer and war profiteer... This designation continues OFAC's efforts to disrupt the involvement of the Bout network, one of the largest illicit arms-trafficking networks in the world, in conflicts in the DRC and elsewhere."
OFAC has previously publicly noted Bout's role in supplying the Taliban and his support of Liberian warlord Charles Taylor. A small plug-I, along with my co-author Steve Braun, have a book on Bout and the weapons trade coming out in August, titled "Merchant of Death." My full blog is here.
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://counterterrorismblog.org/mt/pings.cgi/3834
