Minin had been under surveillance since 1992 for his suspected illegal arms dealings, mostly to West African nations.

In the 1990s he opened a timber business registered in Zug in Switzerland as well as offices in Monrovia in Liberia and Tel Aviv in Israel.

[4] Taylor supplied the arms to militants of the Revolutionary United Front in neighboring Sierra Leone as part of his sponsorship of their war in an effort to take control of that country's diamond trade.

Dževad Galijašević a former intelligence officer in Bosnia, witnessed how weapons from Leonid Minin ended up in the hands of mujahideen during the Bosnian war.

Nicolas Cage's character in the film Lord of War is a composite of Minin and another arms smuggler, Viktor Bout.