A weapons manufacturer and former Soviet military translator, he used his multiple companies to smuggle arms from Eastern Europe to Africa and the Middle East during the 1990s and early 2000s.

In a 2008 US sting operation Bout was arrested in Thailand on terrorism charges by the Royal Thai Police in cooperation with American authorities and Interpol.

In 2011 Bout was convicted by a jury at a federal court in Manhattan, of conspiracy to kill American citizens and officials, delivery of anti-aircraft missiles, and providing aid to a terrorist organization; he was sentenced to the minimum 25 years' imprisonment.

In 2022, he was released in a prisoner exchange for American basketball player Brittney Griner, who had been sentenced, in August 2022, to 9 years of imprisonment for bringing 0.7g[4] of cannabis oil into Russia.

[33] Bout is thought to have been discharged from the Soviet Army upon its dissolution in 1991 with the rank of lieutenant colonel, whereupon he started an air freight business.

[35][8][18][26][39][40] Around this time, Bout earned the nickname of "Sanctions Buster" due to his implication in facilitating the violation of United Nations arms embargoes in the western African countries of Angola, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

[9][42][43] Beginning in 1994, Bout made shipments for the pre-Taliban government of Afghanistan, which later became the Northern Alliance, and knew one of its commanders, Ahmad Shah Massoud.

[44] In 2000, a United Nations report stated, "Bulgarian arms manufacturing companies had exported large quantities of different types of weapons between 1996 and 1998 on the basis of (forged[11]) end-user certificates from Togo",[45] and that "with only one exception, the company Air Cess, owned by Victor Bout, was the main transporter of these weapons from Burgas airport in Bulgaria".

The weapons may have been destined for use in the Angolan Civil War by UNITA, the opposing faction of the MPLA which Bout had aided during his military service.

[45][46] Another suspected arms dealer, Imad Kebir, is said to have employed Bout's aircraft during the mid-1990s to transport weapons to Africa from Eastern European states.

[48] In Liberia, Bout was suspected of supplying Charles Taylor with arms for use in the First Liberian Civil War, with eyewitnesses claiming that the two met personally.

The Slobodna Bosna newspaper claims that Čengić was a business partner of Bout since then, when 200,000 AK-47 rifles went missing in transit from Bosnia to Iraq in May 2006.

"[54] In 2004, Bout and Chichakli allegedly set up Samar Airlines in Tajikistan to conduct money laundering activities and protect assets from authorities, according to an indictment by the U.S. Justice Department in 2010.

[59][60][61] Bout's strategy of constantly moving locations, owning numerous companies, and frequently re-registering aircraft made it hard for authorities to make a case against him.

[35][45][62] During Bout's reported operations, he is believed to have lived in various countries, including Belgium, Lebanon, Rwanda, Russia, South Africa, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates.

[39] Bout's website states that because he failed to appear in court a Belgian warrant (not the Interpol notice) for his arrest was issued but later cancelled.

[65] Bout's U.S. assets were among those frozen in July 2004 under Executive Order 13348, which describes him as a "businessman, dealer and transporter of weapons and minerals" and cites his close association with Charles Taylor.

[78][79][80] On 16 November 2010, Bout was extradited from Thailand to the United States amid protests by the Russian government, who deemed it illegal.

[97][98] US District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that the minimum sentence was appropriate because "there was no evidence that Bout would have committed the crimes for which he was convicted had it not been for the sting operation".

[100] In June 2013, a co-conspirator of Bout's, U.S-Syrian citizen Richard Ammar Chichakli, was extradited to New York on charges that he conspired to buy aircraft in violation of economic sanctions.

[102] In 2014, former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's law firm represented Bout, seeking a new trial to overturn his conviction.

[107] In May 2022, a Forbes article claimed the Biden administration had offered Bout in exchange for the release of Women's National Basketball Association player Brittney Griner.

Griner had been detained by customs officers in Sheremetyevo International Airport for being in possession of drugs illegal in Russia, for which she faced 5–10 years in prison.

[115] On 2 July 2023, Bout was nominated to run for a seat in the Legislative Assembly of Ulyanovsk Oblast as a member of the LDPR,[116] which he ended up winning.

[119][120] Viktor Bout met his future wife in the late 1980s in Mozambique, where he worked as a translator from Portuguese in the Soviet military mission.

[121][122] He claims that he is not a follower of any religion, but considers Leo Tolstoy and Ivan Ilyin to be his spiritual leaders and "shares the views" of Jesus Christ, Buddha, Zarathustra and Krishna.

[123] Bout speaks many languages, including English, French, Portuguese, Tajik, Farsi, Dari, Zulu, Xhosa and Esperanto,[124] most of which he learned while in prison.

[35][26][127] In 2007, Stephen Braun and Douglas Farah published a book about Bout: Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible.

[128] The 2015 TV series Manhunt: Kill or Capture, episode 10, entitled "The Merchant of Death", details the rise and fall of Viktor Bout.