Relentless global mission to capture Public Enemy No 1
I OFTEN wondered about the large Russian cargo planes parked on the perimeters of dusty airfields all over Africa. Only after a while was I told to whom they belonged; also not to ask too many questions. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw me based in Cape Town, but as a bit of a bush pilot myself (11 000 hours) I’d been around pretty well any place within about a 1 800km range that could take my Comanchie.
This book is probably the best of its kind I have read. Other works by the author you may recognise include
Operation Relentless
and
Every word of is true. Master storyteller Damien Lewis, who spent many years reporting from flashpoints worldwide, makes the centre of attraction in this book the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was hunted by authorities in the US and Europe for two decades.
By 2007 Bout was the world’s foremost arms trafficker. Known as the “Merchant of Death” he was Public Enemy No 1 to global intelligence agencies.
With a strong South African link, for years Bout eluded capture, constructing an almost impenetrable network of airlines selling weapons on order to dictators, rebels, despots and terror groups worldwide.
Bout was hunted by the CIA, NSA, MI6 and sought by the UN for being their top global sanctions-buster. Holed-up in Moscow – from where he ran a suite of offices selling anything from AK47s to state-of-the-art helicopter gunships and anti-aircraft missiles – he was shielded by a Russian state that was a silent partner. Bout appeared invulnerable, beyond capture.
Via its own secretive, shadow network, former SAS man Mike Snow, who has worked as a bush pilot in Africa where he’d got to know Bout well, was approached by the US Drugs Enforcement Agency. Its agents had one question for him: was Snow able to get to Viktor Bout? This is the incredible tale of
the top-secret mission to entrap Bout – a story that ranges from the steamy jungles of Colombia to the icebound streets of Moscow, and from horrific bloodshed and tyranny in the Congo to a snatch operation like no other.
Lewis says Bout was given a fair trial in America and opted not to put up a defence. According to him, Bout probably didn’t want any of the secrets to which he was privy in the Russian regime to come out in court.
And, according to Lewis, Bout specialised in flying anything anywhere, for anyone, at any time as long as the price was right.