U.S. considers exchanging notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout for Americans Brittney Griner, Paul Whelan

A decade ago, the conviction of Viktor Bout in Manhattan Federal Court marked a considerable and long-sought victory for American authorities, bringing justice to a shadowy, mustachioed Russian arms dealer nicknamed the “Merchant of Death.”

Bout, accused of conspiring to sell millions of dollars in weapons to men he thought were Colombian terrorists eager to slay Americans, was busted in Thailand in 2008 and found guilty by an American jury after a three-week trial in late 2011.

Preet Bharara, then the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said a “very dangerous man” was headed behind bars. The next spring, Bout was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

But now, with the U.S. desperate to secure the release of two Americans detained in Russia — including a recognizable WNBA player arrested in the winter over hashish oil cartridges spied in her luggage at a Moscow-area airport — Bout may soon walk free.

FILE - Viktor Bout, center, is led by armed Thai police commandoes as he arrives at the criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand, Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010. The Russian arms dealer who once inspired a Hollywood movie is back in the headlines with speculation around a return to Moscow in a prisoner exchange for U.S. WBNA star Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. (Apichart Weerawong/)

CNN reported Wednesday that the U.S. has offered Russia the release of Bout, 55, in exchange for the freedom of Brittney Griner, the American basketball star, and Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine who was jailed in 2018 and later sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges.

The proposal, described to CNN by unnamed sources, would amount to major concession for the U.S., with Washington-Moscow relations plummeting to Cold War temperatures after President Vladimir Putin ordered his bloody invasion of Ukraine in February.

The U.S. sometimes engages in prisoner swaps, and has traded prisoners with Russia as recently as April. But the deals are often opposed by the Justice Department, and the exchange outlined in the Bout case would be uniquely high-profile.

Bout, a onetime Soviet military translator, dove into the weapons business in the 1990s and had his fingers in armed conflicts around the world, from Somalia to Rwanda to South America. He even inspired a 2005 movie starring Nicolas Cage, “Lord of War.”

“Bout was the archetypical merchant of death in the mid-to-late ‘90s, and early part of the first decade of the century,” Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an expert on the Russian Army, said Wednesday.

“Bout was a big fish,” Blank added. “He was all over the third world.”

A sting did him in: U.S. drug enforcement agents posing as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia fooled him into agreeing to sell them weapons. He went from Interpol’s wanted list to the American prison system.

It was not immediately clear how likely the reported trade was to be accepted by Russia, though analysts said they expected the Kremlin to take it. Blank said Putin was behind many of Bout’s arms deals before his arrest.

FILE- In this Aug. 23, 2019, file photo, Paul Whelan, a former U.S. marine who was arrested for alleged spying in Moscow on Dec. 28, 2018, speaks while standing in a cage as he waits for a hearing in a courtroom in Moscow, Russia. Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer who once inspired a Hollywood movie, is back in the headlines with speculation around a return to Moscow in a prisoner exchange for WBNA star Brittney Griner and Whelan. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File) (Alexander Zemlianichenko/)

The State Department and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the reported Bout proposal. The White House deferred comment to the State Department.

But Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the U.S. had presented Russia with a “substantial proposal” several weeks ago aimed at securing the release of Griner, 31, and Whelan, 52. Blinken added that he planned to speak with Russia’s top diplomat, Sergey Lavrov, in the “coming days.”

Blinken did not outline the contours of the proposal. But his planned chat with Lavrov marked a remarkable reversal: He has not spoken with his Moscow counterpart since Russia began Europe’s largest military invasion since World War II.

“I plan to raise an issue that’s a top priority for us: The release of Americans Paul Whelan and Brittney Griner, who have been wrongfully detained and must be allowed to come home,” Blinken said at a news conference, adding that the U.S. and Russia have been in repeated contact about America’s proposal.

“I’ll use the conversation to follow up personally,” Blinken added. “And, I hope, move us toward a resolution.”

Olga Lautman, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis who focuses on Russia, said the Kremlin has always sought to secure Bout’s release, and used Griner as a bargaining chip.

WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner holds images standing in a cage at a court room prior to a hearing, in Khimki just outside Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, July 27, 2022. American basketball star Brittney Griner returned Wednesday to a Russian courtroom for her drawn-out trial on drug charges that could bring her 10 years in prison of convicted. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool) (Alexander Zemlianichenko/)

“It’s a dangerous precedent,” Lautman warned. “Because it means that Russia knows that they can continue kidnapping Americans and using them to put pressure or to gain concessions.”

The U.S. is under significant pressure due to the Griner case: The Phoenix Mercury center faces up to 10 years in prison, and she appeared in a Russian courtroom on Wednesday. She has pleaded guilty, and her lawyer has said she had a medical prescription for cannabis.

The sight of the seven-time All-Star locked in handcuffs on the other side of the world has been tough to take for Americans. She was in Russia to play with her offseason squad when she was arrested, and she recently sent President Biden a handwritten note saying: “I’m terrified I might be here forever.”

But Bout, who is locked up in Illinois, would represent a steep price.

In 2011, Eric Holder, then the U.S. attorney general, described Bout in a statement as “one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks at a news conference, Wednesday, July 27, 2022 at the State Department in Washington. The Biden administration has offered a deal to Russia aimed at bringing home WNBA star Brittney Griner and another jailed American Paul Whelan. That's according to Blinken, who also revealed that he had asked to speak with his Kremlin counterpart for the first time in months in hopes of expediting an answer from Russia. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) (Andrew Harnik/)

“Viktor Bout’s arms trafficking activity and support of armed conflicts have been a source of concern around the globe for decades,” Holder said in the statement.

Jonathan Franks, a hostage negotiations expert who worked on the U.S.-Russia trade in April, still said that the trade would be a good one for America, noting that Bout had already served a large chunk of his sentence.

“He is a bad guy,” Franks said of Bout. “He is not a good guy — I don’t dispute that. But he is not [Osama] bin Laden.”

“Our government’s primary responsibility is to keep American people safe,” Franks added.