what is gun running?
Answer: The 1999 Report of the UN Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms provides a more refined and precise definition, which has become internationally accepted. This distinguishes between small arms (revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, submachine guns, assault rifles, and light machine guns), which are weapons designed for personal use, and light weapons (heavy machine guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers, portable anti-aircraft guns, portable anti-tanks guns, recoilless rifles, portable launchers of anti-aircraft missile systems, and mortars of calibres less than 100 mm), which are designed for use by several persons serving as a unit. Ammunition and explosives also form an integral part of small arms and light weapons used in conflict
info from wikipedia
most known gun runner:
If Viktor Bout did not exist, a thriller writer would have invented him. A former Russian lieutenant, he became one of the world's biggest arms dealers, flying his ancient Soviet planes into battlefields from Liberia to Afghanistan. His clients have included the Taliban and the US government, African warlords and the UN.
He has as many aliases as an AK-47 has rounds, and has acquired the nicknames Merchant of Death and Lord of War. Pursued for years by the intelligence services of the world, and tracked for months by Thai detectives, yesterday the elusive 41-year-old was finally arrested in a five star hotel in Bangkok.
This time Bout is accused of attempting to buy arms and explosives for leftwing Farc rebels in Colombia but the charge sheet could have listed half a dozen countries where governments might like to interview him. Accused of flouting UN arms embargos and wanted by Interpol, he was eventually arrested on a warrant issued by a Thai court acting on information from the US Drug Enforcement Administration. It is understood that DEA agents posed as arms buyers acting on behalf of Farc.Bout's story is a classic end-of-the-cold-war morality tale. As a smart and opportunistic 25-year-old, he took advantage of three converging factors after the collapse of the USSR: the sudden availability of cheap, clapped out Soviet airforce planes, a massive stockpile of weapons and spare parts guarded only by underpaid and disgruntled servicemen, and the burgeoning demand for arms from countless conflict areas around the world. Soon he was flying arms to any government or militia that wanted them and filling his Antonov cargo planes with less lethal wares, from gladioli to diamonds, for equally lucrative return trips.
Initially, he provided cheap freight routes to whomever would pay, whether the Angolan government or Unita rebels, the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan or their Taliban opponents. After 2001, he worked for the US government and its civilian suppliers, shipping goods into Iraq on their behalf.
"In an age when the US president has divided the world into those who are with the United States and those who are against it, Bout is both," wrote Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, authors of Merchant of Death, the investigation into Bout which they published last year.
AdvertisementHe has also flown peacekeepers for the UN to Somalia and aid to Sri Lanka, after the 2004 tsunami, and been accused of supplying the Liberian warlord, Charles Taylor.
Yuri Orlov, the character played by Nicholas Cage in Lord of War, the 2005 film about the international arms trade, is said to be modelled on Bout. Amnesty International has commended the film for highlighting the baleful effects of the arms trade. Doubtless Bout will one day be the subject of a film himself, played perhaps by Russell Crowe in a bad moustache, dark glasses and baseball cap; Bout rarely allows himself to be photographed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/07/thailand.russia
information from-
He has as many aliases as an AK-47 has rounds, and has acquired the nicknames Merchant of Death and Lord of War. Pursued for years by the intelligence services of the world, and tracked for months by Thai detectives, yesterday the elusive 41-year-old was finally arrested in a five star hotel in Bangkok.
This time Bout is accused of attempting to buy arms and explosives for leftwing Farc rebels in Colombia but the charge sheet could have listed half a dozen countries where governments might like to interview him. Accused of flouting UN arms embargos and wanted by Interpol, he was eventually arrested on a warrant issued by a Thai court acting on information from the US Drug Enforcement Administration. It is understood that DEA agents posed as arms buyers acting on behalf of Farc.Bout's story is a classic end-of-the-cold-war morality tale. As a smart and opportunistic 25-year-old, he took advantage of three converging factors after the collapse of the USSR: the sudden availability of cheap, clapped out Soviet airforce planes, a massive stockpile of weapons and spare parts guarded only by underpaid and disgruntled servicemen, and the burgeoning demand for arms from countless conflict areas around the world. Soon he was flying arms to any government or militia that wanted them and filling his Antonov cargo planes with less lethal wares, from gladioli to diamonds, for equally lucrative return trips.
Initially, he provided cheap freight routes to whomever would pay, whether the Angolan government or Unita rebels, the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan or their Taliban opponents. After 2001, he worked for the US government and its civilian suppliers, shipping goods into Iraq on their behalf.
"In an age when the US president has divided the world into those who are with the United States and those who are against it, Bout is both," wrote Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun, authors of Merchant of Death, the investigation into Bout which they published last year.
AdvertisementHe has also flown peacekeepers for the UN to Somalia and aid to Sri Lanka, after the 2004 tsunami, and been accused of supplying the Liberian warlord, Charles Taylor.
Yuri Orlov, the character played by Nicholas Cage in Lord of War, the 2005 film about the international arms trade, is said to be modelled on Bout. Amnesty International has commended the film for highlighting the baleful effects of the arms trade. Doubtless Bout will one day be the subject of a film himself, played perhaps by Russell Crowe in a bad moustache, dark glasses and baseball cap; Bout rarely allows himself to be photographed.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/07/thailand.russia
information from-