Plane of imprisoned Russian gunrunner scrapped in UAE
UMM AL-QUWAIN, United Arab Emirates — The hulking, Soviet-era cargo plane has sat for decades under the blazing sun in a remote corner of the United Arab Emirates, its four jet engines silent after years in the employ of a Russian gunrunner known as the “Merchant of Death.”
But instead of a missile or gunfire finally taking out this Ilyushin Il-76 tied to arms smuggler Viktor Bout, the plane appears destined for scrap to make way for a force more powerful in this federation of seven sheikhdoms: Luxury real estate.
The emirate of Umm al-quwain plans a $675 million development on a island just across a lagoon from the deactivated airport where Bout’s plane sits.
His legacy, however, lives on even as workers disassemble the aircraft’s wings — Russia has suggested America trade Bout for U.S. citizens held by Moscow amid its war on Ukraine.
The iconic bulging nose of the plane represented a landmark for the low-cost liquor store at Umm al-quwain’s Barracuda Beach Resort. That’s even with large letters painted on the Ilyushin for the last 20-odd years as a billboard for another hotel.
The tail number — and two others on jet engine inlet covers — link back to Bout-operated airlines that once plied the skies between Africa, Europe and the Middle East, carrying Soviet-era ammunition, rifles, rockets and other instruments of destruction into war zones such as Afghanistan, Angola and Liberia.
Bout used Sharjah, a neighboring emirate of Dubai, as a base for much of his fleet, even though the planes were registered in third countries — like the Ilyushin, flying under the flag of the Central African Republic.
But when the Ilyushin became too dangerous to fly, he came up with a plan to sell the plane to serve as advertising, said Stephen Braun, co-author of a book on the gunrunner called “Merchant of Death.”
Umm al-quwain has no oil or natural gas of its own, and as the UAE’S smallest emirate by population, it has not enjoyed the financial success of Dubai or the energy-rich capital of Abu Dhabi. But a growing demand for real estate has the emirate betting its new development could spur new life into the otherwise-sleepy sheikhdom.
Extradited from Thailand, Bout was convicted in 2011 and is serving a 25-year sentence in a federal prison in Illinois on charges he conspired to sell millions of dollars in weapons to rebels in Colombia — who actually were Drug Enforcement Administration agents..
However in the years since, Russia has repeatedly floated his name in possible exchanges for Americans held by Moscow. His prominence and rise in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse has Braun and others suspicious that Bout had ties to Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.
As recently as May 13, the Russian news agency Tass quoted an anonymous official suggesting Bout could be traded for detained WNBA All-star Brittney Griner.