Who is the “merchant of death” Victor Bout that Putin exchanged for the American Brittney Greiner

Shortly after his conviction in 2011 on charges including conspiracy to kill US citizens, the Russian arms dealer Victor Booth sent a defiant message through his lawyer as he faced the prospect of decades in prison. Mr. Booth, his lawyer said, “believes this is not the end.”

More than a decade later, Booth, 55, was released despite serving less than half of his 25-year sentence. It was exchanged on Thursday with the American basketball star Brittney Greiner, who was imprisoned in Russia for 10 months.

Russian officials had pushed for Bout’s return after he was convicted in New York on four counts that included conspiracy to kill American citizens. Prosecutors said he agreed to sell anti-aircraft weapons to drug-trafficking informants posing as arms buyers for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

The attorney general at the time, Eric Holder, called Booth “one of the most prolific arms dealers in the world.” Bout became notorious among US intelligence officials, earning the nickname “Dealer of Death” as he eluded capture for years. His exploits helped inspire a 2005 film, Lord of War, which starred Nicolas Cage as a character modeled after Mr. Bout.

He grew up in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, until he was drafted into the Soviet army at the age of 18. After a stint in the military, he studied Portuguese at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages ​​in Moscow, essentially preparing him for Russian intelligence and eventually becoming an officer in the Air Force.

The Soviet Union dissolved shortly after Bout left the army. As Russia’s economy collapsed and criminal gangs thrived, he moved to the United Arab Emirates and founded a cargo company that grew to a fleet of 60 planes.

With military supplies from former Soviet states leaking onto the black market, his shipping empire supplied arms to rebels, militants and terrorists around the world, prosecutors said. In the new era of privatization in Russia, arms dealers have been able to use old Soviet-era social, military and business networks, and also develop companies to hide their transactions.

Booth was accused of selling weapons to Al Qaeda, the Taliban and militants in Rwanda. According to various investigations and his US indictment, he and his associates defied arms embargoes in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Algeria, where he sold weapons to both government forces and the rebels fighting them.

His ability to evade capture enhanced his reputation among Western intelligence officials. In 1995, the Taliban shot down one of his planes in Afghanistan and seized the cargo and imprisoned the crew. Bout and Russian officials somehow managed to get the crew out of the country: In 2003, he told the New York Times Magazine that they were “removed,” and in 2012, according to The New Yorker, he said they simply escaped.

U.S. authorities finally tracked him down in Bangkok in 2008. Bout met with undercover agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration who he believed represented rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which the United States considered a terrorist organization until last year .

When prospective buyers told him the weapons could be used to kill American pilots, Booth replied, “We have the same enemy,” according to prosecutors.

Thai authorities arrested him on the spot. Issued on USA in 2010 and two years later he was sentenced to 25 years.

In the years since, Russian authorities have insisted on his innocence and considered him a possible swap for other high-profile American and Ukrainian prisoners. He has been at the center of a Russian “we do not abandon our own” campaign, which sees his arrest as unjust and politically motivated.