The Economist:

A FORMER Soviet military-intelligence officer, stranded in Africa by the collapse of his country, turns to gun-running and builds a lucrative international business. It is the sort of outfit that thrives on pointless wars in failed, dirt-poor places. But it also plays a part in some bigger conflicts. Its list of past customers includes the world's best-known terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and Colombia's FARC—and Western governments too. Efforts to round up the man at the centre of this web are frustrated, sometimes by bad luck, and sometimes apparently by squabbles in the rich world between those who want to prosecute and those who protect him.

That, broadly, is the critics' account of the career of Viktor Bout, once a Soviet “military translator” in Africa, fluent in six languages, the founder of numerous controversial freight businesses, and now the inmate of a police cell in Thailand, where he was detained on March 6th in a sting operation. Mr Bout says he was on holiday. An extradition affidavit filed by an agent of America's Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Robert Zachariasiewicz, says Mr Bout was lured from his home in Moscow to Thailand by people posing as FARC representatives, wanting to buy weapons for a $5m commission. America says it will seek his extradition. On March 10th Mr Bout's British associate, Andrew Smulian, was charged in New York with conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organisation.
...
Even more puzzling is why Mr Bout ventured to Thailand at all. Mr Zachariasiewicz's affidavit paints a picture of a man both greedy and careless in pursuit of a smallish deal—implausible for those who believe Mr Bout to have been a meticulous planner with a vast fortune.

AP:

Bout, 41, was arrested last week at a Bangkok luxury hotel after a U.S.-led sting operation. He was charged with conspiracy for trying to smuggle missiles and rocket launchers to a Colombian rebel group that is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

A Thai court denied Bout bail Tuesday, saying it feared the suspect might try to flee the country, his lawyer said.

Bout, also known as "The Merchant of Death," is being held in a Thai prison while authorities investigate whether he used the country as a base to negotiate the deal with terrorists. The Russian denies any wrongdoing and applied for bail Tuesday.

"The court has denied bail," his lawyer, Lak Nitiwatanavichan, said. "The suspect is being detained on severe charges for alleged engagement with international terrorists and the court said if it grants bail the suspect might escape."

Suspects can be held up to 84 days in Thailand without being formally charged.

If convicted, Bout could face 10 years in prison on the Thai charge, and 15 years in the United States, which is seeking Bout's extradition.

A purported associate of Bout's, Andrew Smulian, appeared Monday in a New York City courtroom to face similar charges, prosecutors in New York said. Smulian, who was arrested Friday in New York, did not enter a plea and was held without bail.

To capture Bout, undercover agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration posed as rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, seeking to purchase millions of dollars' worth of weapons.

BP: It is as I suspected, DEA knew they could good cooperation from the Thailand law enforcement agencies and lured him here. They might have talked about other countries, but Bout was also finally comfortable with Thailand too.

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