Putin’s ‘dealer of death’ is back in the arms business. This time he sells to the Houthis

Victor Bott, the Russian arms dealer known as the “dealer of death”, was released from a US prison almost two years ago as part of a prisoner exchange with Moscow in exchange for American basketball star Brittany Greiner. Now he is back in business, trying to broker the sale of small arms to the Houthi-backed militias by Iran in Yemen.

The 57-year-old, whose life reportedly inspired the 2005 Hollywood movie “Warlord” starring Nicolas Cage, spent decades selling Soviet-made weapons in Africa, South America and the Middle East before he was arrested in 2008 in a law enforcement sting operation Americanism.

Since his release, Bot has joined a far-right pro-Kremlin party and won a seat on a local council in 2023, seemingly turning a new page from his time as an arms dealer. But when Houthi emissaries arrived in Moscow in August to negotiate the purchase of $10 million worth of automatic weapons, they encountered a familiar figure: the bearded bot, according to a European security official and other people familiar with the matter.

“Bot hasn’t been in the delivery business for over twenty years”

The potential arms transfers, which have not yet been provided, are a far cry from the sale of anti-ship or anti-aircraft missiles that could pose a significant threat to the US military’s efforts to protect international shipments from Houthi attacks.

The Biden administration has expressed concern that Russia might supply the Houthis with such advanced weapons in response to American support for Ukraine, but there is no evidence that such missiles were sent, or that a bot was involved in such a deal.

Still, shipments of light weapons to the Houthis will also encounter resistance from Washington, which has classified the Yemeni militias as a terrorist organization.

Arming a belligerent in the Middle East conflict would also mark an escalation for Russia, which has strengthened its security ties with Tehran but has generally stayed out of the conflict between Israel and its Iranian-backed foes. Steve Zissou, a New York lawyer who represented Bout in the US, declined to discuss whether his client had met with the Houthis. “Victor Bout has not been in the shipping business for over twenty years,” Zssou said. “But if the Russian government approved him to help transfer Arms to one of America’s enemies, it would be no different from the US government sending arms and weapons to one of Russia’s enemies, as it did when it sent to Ukraine.”

In an interview with TASS, the state-run Russian news agency, after the article was published, Bout called the accusations that he was selling weapons to the Houthis “baseless.” He did not address the question of whether he had returned to the arms business.

Houthi representatives discussed anti-tank missiles

The small arms deal said to have been brokered by Bot involved two Houthi representatives traveling to Moscow under the guise of purchasing pesticides and vehicles and visiting a Lada factory, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The people aware of the deal did not know if the deal was conducted at the initiative of the Kremlin or only with its tacit approval. While the Houthis were seeking Russian-made weapons, the Wall Street Journal was unable to determine the intended source of supply.

A Houthi spokesman declined to comment. The Kremlin responded to a request for comment. “We saw the article,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, according to TASS. “We tend to classify it as false news or an information attack on our elected representatives.”

The first two shipments will be mostly AK-74 automatic rifles, an improved version of the AK-47 assault rifle. But during the visit, Houthi representatives also discussed other weapons that the Russian side might sell, including Kornet anti-aircraft missiles and anti-aircraft weapons, according to the European source and other people familiar with the matter.

Shipments may begin as early as October to the port of Hodeidah under the guise of food supplies, where Russia has already made several nuclear shipments, they said.

When Bott was released as part of the prisoner exchange in December 2022, White House officials described it as a difficult decision but the only way to get Greiner out of a Russian prison camp. They emphasized that Bott had already served 12 years in US prisons.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at the time that the US administration had conducted a risk assessment of Bot’s release before the exchanges and concluded that the risks were manageable.

“We believe we can manage these challenges, but we will remain ever vigilant against any threat Victor Bot may pose to Americans, and to the United States in the future,” Sullivan said. “I will just point out that there is no shortage of arms dealers and mercenaries in Russia.” A spokesman for the National Security Council did not respond to a request for comment on Bot’s current activities.

Hang a portrait of Putin on his prison cell in the US

Since his release from prison, Bout has appeared frequently on Russian television as a commentator on Russian politics and a critic of the United States, which he says is determined to dismantle Russia. He is also occasionally quoted in Russian media as an expert on the arms trade.

He said he kept a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin on his prison cell wall throughout his US incarceration, and strongly supported the invasion of Ukraine.

Selling arms to the Houthis would add to Bout’s long career in selling weapons to some of the world’s most controversial clients. Born in 1967 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, then part of the Soviet Union, according to official records, Bout served as a military interpreter and learned French, English, Arabic, Farsi and Portuguese. He was sent to assist the Angolan forces during the civil war in the 1980s.

After the collapse of the communist bloc in 1991, bought Russian military cargo planes and used them to transport UN peacekeepers in Africa. Bout first became famous when the US in 2005 imposed sanctions on him for trading arms for diamonds with Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia and a convicted war criminal. UN experts also accused him of violating international arms embargoes on Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He was arrested in Thailand in a sting operation in 2008 led by US Drug Enforcement Administration agents posing as left-wing Colombian rebels, and convicted in 2011 of conspiring to kill Americans and trying to sell weapons to Colombian rebels. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The Houthis repeatedly attacked international shipments and launched drone and missile attacks against Israel. The US and Israel have carried out airstrikes in response, including on Friday when the US military struck 15 Houthi targets.