Comrades in arms: meet the former Soviet mobsters who sell terrorists their guns - arms trade - related article: The Taliban's Favorite Gunrunner - related article: The CIA's Favorite Gunrunner

Bout, who is believed to be only 35 years old, was born in Tashkent. He trained with the Russian air force and worked with the KGB, which helped him develop a network of military and intelligence contacts in the former Soviet bloc. Currently residing in the United Arab Emirates, he is said to have five passport, utilizes as many as seven aliases, and does business with arms trading companies in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Africa. Bout uses five airlines that he owns to ship the weapons he sells; he has a total fleet of at least 60 planes and employs 300 people. According to a report from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, he operates in at least nine countries in Africa and takes payment in cash, diamonds, and other gemstones.

Bout's earliest arms deals were in Afghanistan, where in 1995 he was arming the government against the Taliban, which took power the following year. According to a source familiar with his activities, the Taliban interdicted one of Bout's supply flights, which led him to change clients. "He's a very enterprising person," says this source. "When his plane was detained, he used the opportunity as a business introduction to the Taliban."

In Africa, Bout has fueled every recent major conflict. In the mid-1990s, he allegedly supplied Hum radicals from Rwanda who had earlier murdered nearly one million Tutsis. In Angola, he has armed both sides of the fighting in a two-decades -long civil war, though he has favored the rebel group known as UNITA, which is under a blanket U.N. arms embargo. Bout has sold UNITA everything from heavy weapons to light arms, mostly bought from Bulgarian sources. Bout has recently been active in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he has provided fuel, arms, and transport planes for rebel groups.

Bout is considered such a serious threat that the U.S. government has a concerted program aimed at putting him out of business, and preferably in jail. The reason for the government's concern is not only the geographic scope of Bout's activities, but that no other broker has the logistical capability to supply both small arms and major weapons systems. American officials say Bout has supplied the Taylor regime with helicopter gunships, and he is believed to have sold tanks to other clients. "If you are a terrorist or a rogue head of state and you have a problem relating to weapons, Victor is the man to call," says former National Security Council official Lee Wolosky.

Together with the British--who have deployed troops in West Africa that could be targeted by weapons supplied by Bout--the U.S. has been quietly pressuring governments that have harbored Bout. The strategy has not resulted in his arrest, but it has required him to shift his operations. South Africa forced him out a few years ago, leading Bout to take up residence in Sharja in the UAE. The Emirates has not thus far deported Bout--and given that the UAE is a close American and British ally, that probably means he is paying off top officials--but it has reportedly put him on a tighter leash. "This is a new type of problem and we're at the early stages of combating these criminal syndicates," says Wolosky. "To a certain extent we're still groping."