Welcome to It Could Happen Here podcast about how the world is falling apart and sometimes about how to put it together, but today mostly about the people who are accelerating the falling apart. Garrison's with me, Sharen's with me. We are talking today about the Merchant of Death, the Lord of War, Victor Boot. So she probably started off
by talking about why we're talking about Victor Boot. Victor Boots always an interesting topic of conversation, but he's come up recently because he's one of the people who has been proposed to be exchanged for two US citizens who are being held by Russia, one being Brittany Grinder and one being Paul Wheelon. So I'm guessing folks are pretty familiar with the Brittany Grinder situation. If if not, what's the what's the t LDR on that? Yeah, t l d R is. Brittney Grinder is a two time Olympic
gold medalist. She's a basketball player and she often plays offseason basketball in Russia, which tells you a lot about disparities in wages between men and women in professional sport.
And unfortunately, when she was traveling to Russia, I guess she had a weed vape cartridge in her back, and so she was arrested and accused of drug smuggling and yeah, which, yeah, like it's as you as as we go through this, it will become very clear that I don't think it's controversial to say that the Russian state engages in hostage taking, right for sure. Yeah, I don't think that's like a
controversial statement that this lady is not drug smuggling. Yeah, I too would probably want to take drugs if I had to spend my off seasons in Russia. But like, it's so transparent what they're doing. It's like they don't even attempts to not it's just yeah, it's they're are being sneaky about it. They're very clearly being like, we're taking this person hostage. Yeah, and we will hold this person hostage until you give us the person that we want back right there. And even so, there was a
previous guy. Um, he was a marine held by Russia. So there's Paul Wheeler is the other guy, right, Paul Wheeland was a marine. He had a he didn't have a dishonorable discharge. He had what's called I think another than honorable discharge. He was doing a couple of things. He was embezzling shipped from the United States government, which is pretty based. Yeah, yeah, we should all be so lucky.
And he was also writing bad checks. His checks were bouncing, so he got booted from the Marine Corps for that and was doing some kind of private security work, it seemed like. So he was arrested in Russia. Another former Marine towards, Trevor Reid, was arrested, and his cases just almost comic, like, well, it's not coming. But the guy was driving with his girlfriend at the time. They've been
on a big night out there in a car. He got drunk, got belligerent, started getting fighty uh, and they pulled over and some of his mates were like, look, if you don't calm down, we're going to have to call the police that you keep fighting with us. They called the police. The police were like, right, we'll take you in, you sleep it off, deal with you in
the morning to kick you out. And then at some point the next morning, the FSB turned up, which is like the inheritor of the legacy of the KGB, and we're like, oh, Trevor, why did you attack the cops last night? Why why did you do that why why would you assault the police, the Russian police, And he was like, what are you talking about, bro? And they were like, yeah, you're going to jail. You're a spy. Yeah. So the US government, Biden and the Biden swapped him out.
And the two who are left, well, there are other people left, obviously. But when we stopped out for for the other guy, Trevor Read, I'm not sure who was traded for Trevor Read. I should look at that real quick. It's the most like weird. I mean that nothing is too strange at this point, but like when you really think about it, these countries like trading people. Yes, so strange to me. Yeah he was, he was. He was traded out for someone who was in here on drug
grafting charges. I guess so they switch out Read, right, But Read and we Land have become close in their captivity, and Read's been a big advocate for having Whelan released. Whiland's kind of yeah, you're taking the pit if you think Brittany grind is a drug traffica. But Whillan does have like five different nationalities. I think he's he's got American, he's got Canadian. He might only have four. I think
he's got British and Irish um. So he's a former service member in the United States and like this guy was broke, right he was. He was bouncing checks. As we're learning this episode. One of the things intelligence agencies tend to like is people who are bouncing checks, Like those of those people are easy to recruit, right leg if you're if you're if you're trying to buy ship that you can't afford, you might be easier to recruit if you if they offer you money. Right So it's
I'm not saying he's Despi. I've got no idea whatsoever. I've got no unique insight into that, but I am saying that like his case is a little bit more interesting. So the United States has proposed trading Victor Boot for both Grinder and Wheeling. That was kind of doing the rim of World for a while, but a Russian source confirmed it last weekend. So that's why we want to
talk about Victor Boot today. It's spelled bo Ut by the way, if anyone's looking up, if people are familiar with Victor but at all, it will be probably from the Nicolas Cage film Lord of War. Have you seen that, either of you I have not I subjected Chris to it. Now Chris can't make the podcast, so that's good. Will be Nicolas cage free in this episode. It's a pretty epic film. It's a good Nicolas Cage play Boot. Yeah.
Oh fuck yeah, yeah, I like I need to see that that I wish, yeah, I wish I could share with you, just the scene where like he just turns to the camera and says something like, there's there's fifty million guns in the world. That's one for every twelve people on My only question is how do we are the other eleven? But at some point he like just puffs on a fat cigar in the middle of that. We have an accent. No, he doesn't do a Russian accent.
Actually that's disappointing. Allegedly, that's a real quote from from Victor Boot. By the way, well, if you can find a clip, we can slice it in. Yeah. I can find a clip. I got one. I got one lined up on my computer. I will send it to our our fair editors. There are over five hundred fifty million firearms and worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for avery twelve people on the planet. The only question is how do we own the other eleven. It's great. It's classic Nicholas Cage.
He can't do anything wrong. It's so true. Ghost ghostwriter never happened. I don't know what you're talking about. Does it does not matter? Nope, It's been a race from my memory. So, aside from Nicholas Cage's accent betrayal of the film, isn't shockingly isn't that accurate? Notably, he didn't actually grow up in Brighton Beach, Old Victor. He grew up in dushan Bay In that's uh was in the Tagic province of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Right
now it's into Jikistan's capital. And we know, well, there's a lot of stories about this guy. It's very hard to confirm which of them is true. There are He's clearly told as many background stories, as he's met new groups of people, when he's moved around the world, and as his mom is on the scene. So we do know that his mother is still alive. I think she's eighty five. She will occasionally pop up in the Russian press and ask Joe Biden to let her poor innocent
son go, which is very amusing. His dad we know was a car mechanic, so he's not like a child of privilege particularly. But at some point he seems to have joined the Soviet military, probably the Air Force, and he's trained at their military academy of languages. And this guy's capacity for language is insane. He can go down the shops in like fifteen different languages. He can speak fluently in half a dozen. He can, you know, order
a sandwich in like twenty languages. Yeah, I want that power, Yeah, don't we all? It seems to be like, um, these people who like thrive in in like nonstate activities in crime and stuff like do seem to like having a capacity for language seems to be a massive benefit in that world. And you hear about quite a lot later on when he's in prison in Thailand, he learned Sanskrit. Um he doesn't bother to learn Thai. He doesn't want
people to think they can understand what he's saying. But so he's like, I'll learned Sanskrit while I'm here, Like I'm running out of options. So yeah, he's got this amazing capacity for language, which probably ends up with him being a spook. It's not like it's not cast iron that he worked for the KGB, But it's that way we know that he was bouncing around in Angola as part of the civil war there, so it's it's unlikely that he was a pay clerk or like the guy
who changed the tires on the airplanes. They didn't send him to Angola. And and when the Soviet Union collapses, Victor is in Angola, right, or at least he gets to Angola pretty quickly, not I think because it's the place he wanted to be, but because it was one of the places that had the least regulations on civilian use of military aircraft. So this is where he goes from KGB Dute who speaks a lot of languages, to beginning to be this international arm stealing sort of god.
And he does that by buying these Antonov planes. People might not be familiar with Antonov. It's just a giant plane. It's a huge cargo plane. Obviously a little bit outdated now, but you're will see them. But this is like the Russian big hauler, right, carries a lot of stuff to a lot of places. And by getting those and having absolutely zero morals, he launches his career and like he's not just selling weapons. Certainly to start with, he's um
American people don't get this thing. We have this British stereotype of like the wheeler dealer, as epitomized by like Dellboy in a TV series called Only Fools and Horses. But he's like a market trader. He'll buy whatever he thinks he can score cheap and take it wherever he thinks he can sell expensive. Right, so he's moving like frozen chicken. At one point he's moving flowers from South Africa, and like throughout his career is this massive international arms dealer.
He'll just be like, oh, chicken over there is super cheap, right, let's move that chicken over here. We can make a killing. Like he doesn't I think like we should stress it. He's not like a guy who's obsessed with with the guns and weapons and killing people. I don't think. I think he's a guy who has absolutely zero morals and it's just like, well, there's a high profit margin on guns, so that's where I'll move. But I don't think it's like there's there seems to be no moral angle to
his his existence. Like very quickly after doing that, he's selling weapons into democratic Republic of Congo. He's selling into Liberia in the conflict there Sierra Leone, Rwanda after the genocide. He's there, right, but he's also like transporting French troops
to Rwanda. Later he will be doing contracts for the United States government, for the British government, for most of the Western governments participate in the Forever War, right, And it's very funny actually, like if you're in the phase when the United States is looking for him, which is a bit later when he becomes like a wanted man.
He keeps doing these different shell company it is right to avoid things like sanctions, and the way that he the way that the United States Department of Justice publishes their list, there will be every year or six months, so I'll be like, right, no one can do business with these companies. They're bad, they're connected to arms dealing. And then the United States Department of Defense will go down its list of people it does business with and be like, oh, ship, there's like six of them who
we were like integraly relying on. And then he'll just change the name and so it's fine cause they change their name and then there's like they're it's like Tom and Jerry or Whack a mole. You know, he keeps popping up with these new companies. Um, so he sort of really gets this massive boost around two thousand and one, right with eleven. So nine eleven is a big win for him. It's well, that's the oppisode, that's the sound by. Yeah.
So he's super tight with Ahmad Shah Masud. People are familiar presumably with that we call the Northern Alliance, um, the the people in Afghanistan who the United States back to fight the Taliban. He'd been selling weapons to Massued for a while, and he seems to actually like genuinely be friendly with Massud, Like he talks about him, and we'll get onto how we know him talking about him in a little bit, but he talks about him very fondly.
He's he's a big Massud guy. And so he claims he doesn't trade with the Taliban, and he holds his claim up for a long as time until crew his plane and crew are held by the Taliban at an airport in Afghanistan, which like how did they get their victor? And there's two really, like there's two stories about how they escape. The one story is that like the Taliban require them to maintain this plane every so often because
they want to be able to use the plane. Right, So these these Russian guys are these these contractors for Victor for are doing maintenance on the plane and then they like in sort of like Michael Caine movie style, like cosh their guards over the head, jump start the plane and just pin it to the end of the runway,
take off and fly to freedom. And that's the narrative that was like popular until Victor Boot was like, nah, like I know all those people I just called and was like, do you want to do business with Victor Boot or do you want to hold this plane hostage? Because it's one or the other and you're fund without me and seem Yeah, it's a shame. I like. I like Story one better. I like Story to Story too is objectively, in my opinion, a little bit more badass
on his part, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's the power he has. Yeah, oh yeah, I think when this this guy clicks his fingers, the world, the world listens, like I certainly did until he was in prison learning sanscript. Yeah, if you're the pilot, there's There was an interview I found on YouTube with one of his pilots as well, where he's like, yeah, and you can't do that for very long. He's like, we're constantly landing, like we're being
shot at. Woman landing, we're being shot at when we're taking off, Like we get on the ground and just like eat everything out the back and then just take off again. And like we make a ton of money because no one else is prepared to do that, but probably isn't great for your long term well being. And so he's by like this sort of peak of his
career in the early two thousand. He's got hundreds of employees, he's got sixty aircraft, and he has moved his operation to Charger, which is a very sort of conservative emirate. It's we're still one of the dry emirates, right, but it has what's called a free trade zone. So on top of all his other ship, he's also not paying import export taxes and so he's based there, which seems
to allow him to operate pretty much without impunity. He's moving a ton of small arms from Ukraine, so at the end of the Soviet Union, Ukraine makes a big thing of being like we're returning on nuclear weapons, right, people will be familiar with this that they don't want their nukes anymore. Um. But they also amassed just an incredible amount of small arms, right, So that's like guns, bombs, grenades,
things like that, right, machine guns. And because a bunch of the what was the Soviet military small arms the stored in Ukraine, that becomes like the nexus for the black market. And we think that if ethnically Ukrainian, and he certainly seems to have just been shoveling weapons out of Ukraine to conflicts in largely in Africa, right, Like, if there's a civil war that you know about in Africa or one that you don't know about, probably both sides are using his weapons like that, that's a that's
a fair assumption to make. And by the late nineties early two thousands, he's selling everywhere and using his business to laund the money for other leagual activities. And he was he was linked to the Kadafi regime. He was also selling to rebels in Libya. Um. So it's a huge operation. He's the go to guy for weapons, right, and he sort of comes and they Interpol go after him.
In two thousand and two, there's a Belgian warrant for him, but Belgiums of having to drop their case because it's unclear where he lives, so they can't be like, yeah, he's a resident here, he's a Belgian resident, because Interpol like, now this this guy keeps moving around like it's not clear if you have jurisdiction. Central African Republic also, I think had a warrant out for him, but they haven't
I guess, been successful in serving that warrant. M And in the in the Belgian when they dropped their case, they noted that it would be impossible and very time consuming to prosecute him, which is kind of funny given that he's doing a lot of crimes. But despite this, in two thousand and three, he does this incredible piece with The New York Times, like this thousands of words profile interview of the world's largest arm stealer. It's like
a relic of another era of journalism. They send this writer all around the world to like look for Victor Boo, to try and find Victor Boole. Yeah, two thousand and three, there was a different era that was completely different. Yeah, yeah, that is. Yeah, it's a shame. You look at I look. I looked at it and I just couldn't help but being like this. But they just let this person expense a ship out of flights. Wow, like this, this doesn't
happen anymore. Such a shame. I would love to go to a Russian nightclub and drink carriage juice with armed stealers on the job. Yeah. Yeah, and then build that, build that to the New York Times and yeah, in the PC drinks carriage Jews. He's vegetarian, he caught himself, a scapegoat and a family man. He's what a hero? Yeah, he's just an everyday Joe trying to sell some collash and egos to people who are doing genocide. And he is does this interview? How we know a lot about him? Yes?
That and his uh, this man loves a handicap. He loves a home video right, international crimes the best idea we ever had. Quirky little dude. But he's not doing crimes in his videos. He just looks like like like the guy from the office who is just like the most mundane dude and ill fitting suit. He just looks like a salary man who drives like a regular car and on the weekends like to like go to Buffalo
Wild wings and what sports events. Like he goes on the water slide with his like white ass body and pot belly at one point in one of these firm videos, and like he just yeah, he just strikes you as the most boring family guy, Like he's not he seems to be like morally opposed to doing drugs one point. It's fascinating and bizarre and one of assuming he has children if he's a family man. I think he does have children, certainly has a wife. His wife is out there.
His wife is pretty vocal about let let let my man go right right, Yeah, so I'm pretty sure he does have children. Yeah, probably more than we know about, but maybe not. Maybe he's your wife guy. Well, I just think it's funny in these home videos he's in them like he's like no one else, no family. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be pretty yeah, that would be pretty pretty entertaining.
So two thousand and three, where it's the the article clearly has these two thousand and three vibes, Like it's named after George Bernard Shure play called Arms and the Man, and it's just like epic and meandering and very long, and he talks about in the article he's like, look, they're using me as a scapegoat, Like this is a thing that like the reason there that it's very hard to prosecute Victor boot is because there are not that
many laws against arms stealing. And the reason there are not that many laws against arm stealing is because it's integral to how we do foreign policy, right, Like we are hosed without people like Victor Boo. And that's like the other side of this coin that yeah, we need a nickel cage bad guy to pin this stuff on.
And yeah, he he did some pretty horrific things or sold weapons to people who did horrific things, but he what he's doing is not that like abnormal and it's not that always illegal, and as we'll see when the US has to enter into like gross entrapment to arrest
this guy. And he is right that like is he really the biggest arms deader in the world or is that like Dick Cheney or you know, Lockheed Martin or friends of the podcast Raytheon, Like is he really anymore evil than like I live in San Diego, right or most of the companies I just mentioned have offices here a road past one of them today, you know, and those people also go on the waterside with their kids. And he does have a kid. He has a daughter, one daughter or a child, I don't know, born in
the Emirates and they're really are now. Yeah, he's a great dad. He's been in jail for a lot of their life. Actually, yeah, he has a wife to Allah. It's his wife, just she was. She's a fair bit younger than him. Um so. Also, he's really lost weight in jail, and he's looking pretty good. Have you seen a recent picture of him, but with a mustache and stuff, He's really he's having a glow up, I think in jail. Are you pretty thirsty for Victor? Here? Yeah? You look
at that mustache. Tell me you could say no to that. And one of the things he says in this interview, which is interesting is if I told you everything I know, I'd get the red hole right here, and then points to the middle of his forehead. I yeah, poet. He has a way with words. Yeah, and yeah, he's got somebody great one liners, which it's people have recently like reinterpreted that to be like does he know some ship about put it? Which is why Russia is so keen
to exchange it? Or is he just saying about like like he might possibly have something like signed by someone who's today as senator, right, like engaging in business with one of his companies or something like that, because that's how this works. And so yeah, I don't know. He's rich and powerful. People have probably done business with him, whether they knew it or not, and he's aware of this.
So that article really bounces him up in the sort of world bad Guys List, which is when Nick Cage steps in reads that makes a whole just there's a whole vibe about it that moves the person to Brighton beach Um because I guess American audiences don't know is yeah to Gekastan no less. Uh So, if you're looking for a film the notorious Mr Boot that's the Home Videos Sundance Film Festival Award winner just depicting his dad bought adventures. I think I think it's worth it. You're
serious it was at Sundance. Yeah, it's classic. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they working with me. I know all the time, and I will believe anything at this point, So that sounds crazy to me. A film YEP screen at the Sundance Film Festival. Holy shit, Yep. It's a classic. Um, it's got it's got some real scenes seriously, like on Rotten Tomatoes. Yep. And if you watch, if you watch the trailer, actually you get it. There's like some pictures of him like dad dancing with his his partner at
the time. It's just yeah, it's good stuff. I would recommend it. And it's pictures to him around lots of weapons, the notorious Mr Boots. Yep, yep, Mr Boots. Yeah, it's a kitty. It's yeah, it's very very busy. It's just a quirky little dude. Like what what a little a little dude? Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a picture impretention, I know what I mean. It's not like it's just do you expect him to be like evil and I don't know, smoking in a dark room all the time. No, this
is how they get away with it. They're quirky little dudes. Yeah. Yeah, Like you would see this guy right, like you go to the lounge, like I've spent a decent amount of my life it lounges in like small airports in like the Middle East, Africa whenever trying to fly cheap. You would see this student in the lounge, and you wouldn't be like, oh, there goes in international arms dealer. You'd be like if that man is in U Semiconductors, you know, yeah, yeah,
like he's not. He's not the joker, And no, he is a joker that you can see him having some good old japes in this film. When Nicholas Cage plays him, he doesn't even have a mustache. I know that's disappointing because that is his trademark feature. Well okay, okay, so technically the character Nicholas Cage plays is a fictional illegal arms dealer that's correct based on the stories of Victor about and other real life arms stealers and smugglers. Okay,
they want to play both ways. Yeah, so I've just got a bit in a trailer where it's just like eye contact with the camera hip thrusting and it's troubling. Wow. Okay, well, thank you for that description. Alright, the cutter edge of journalism here, Yes, that's right. Alright, So we should return to to the narrative and not my description of a
Victor Beats dancing. So, um, his arrest is kind of fascinating and again, like his arrest is one of those things where you're like, oh, this is terrible, and then you realize that again, we do this ship all the time, right, and so he to understand his arrest, you've got to first understand this guy, Andrew Smoollian former, he's British, he's born in Britain, but he's a South African Air Force officer. Then he goes into commercial flying, but at some point
he's turned by their intelligence agency. So he's delivering shipments of stuff and then doing a little bit spying on the side. Spying on the side. Yeah, yeah, who's the one hasn't found themselves doing a little Everyone has their side hustles they decide spying for the I don't know if he was doing in the apartheid era, but probably we're certainly in their military in the Aparthei era. Yikes. Yeah, smoothly is not not a man with morals, I don't think,
as we'll find out. So Smoolean has fallen on hard times by two thousand and seven and is working in a hypodermic syringe factory in Tanzania. And that's just the fact that I found without context, and I haven't felt any need to research further. And at that point. Slowly, it's contacted by two fuck generals right revolutionary Enforces Columbia fuck right left wing Marxist guerrilla group that have been fighting in the Jungles for I think they're one of
the world's longest insurgencies for decades. So these fuck generals are like, hey, Smolian, come and meet us in a tiki bar in curis out and we will have a chat. Smolean, right, he wants to get out the syringe factory, so he's got about it up on it. He hops on the plane and they meet in a tiki bar, right, which is obviously a good place to do at Armstel there. I mean, movies are right about that. Then a lot
of stuff going down. Yep, that's a That's the one thing that was factually correct in the whole Cinematic University Victor boot. So they're in the tiki bart right now. It should be noted that these two farn generals, shockingly are not really fun generals. They are d e A assets. In fact, they have been high ranking offices in the Colombian Armed Forces, but they've decided to pivot to a
career in selling cocaine, and in that career pivot. They've unfortunately come into contact with the d A, which is generally not good. Yeah right, they're just trying to sell cocaine and do war crimes against Yeah. Yeah, they're just vibing and killing indigenous people. Probably. They have a pretty
rough record in the Columbian military. It's fair to say, Uh so d A C. Seven is like, yet those are our people, and gives them a ton of money, citizenship embassy for their families, I believe, and turns them right. Asked him to pretend to be funk generals, which they're like, yeah, can you can you spell the word you're saying? What is the Yeah? A smatters Revolution Colombia. Thank you? Yeah, Like sorry, f A R C. Fuck. I might have got the act I am. I am someone that does
not know what that is. So you will be honest about that. Sorry. You know, there's no reason to unless you're like a, I don't know a global conflict to understand the slash doc. They're very nice people, some of them. Actually, Um, they've started micro brewery. Now, yeah, they have a micro brewery. Anything you say they're fucking I will send you a story I wrote on their micro brewery. Unlike Scarred by Robert. He just tells me all these crazy things that are
not true what I believe. I'm not like Robert. I'm a man of the truth. I'm gonna I would drop it in the chat, like, yeah, they definitely have started a micro brewery. These are such a weird little dudes saying, Okay, actually the person who runs a micro brewery is a woman. Uh good, good for her feminism. We love a girl. Yeah, they love a girl. Bus a funk. We're very committed to dender quality. They had women there in their in their military. Yeah, we'll do an episode of Robert and
I want to go to their micro brewery. It's one of my why not sure we've we've got this far. No one's caught us up. Yeah. So anyway, Interestingly, the US government had just done exactly the same thing to Monzerlkassa, who's a Syrian arms dealer. They've done the same we're too far to generals, we would like to buy these weapons, and in the discussion the quote unquote fuck generals are like, we would like to buy these weapons to kill Yankees.
We want to kill Americans. It would be great to have this gun with a sniper scope so we could see if they're American before we shoot them. Just like this is where this is where we get to like the entrapment, right, and this Rellian is like, yeah, whatever, bro, like you want guns? I know a guy and they're like to kill the Americans. So and he's like whatever
you need. Okay, it's getting weird, um. But then smoolelyan master of stealth that he is, goes, okay, so my guy's Victor boot v I K T O R B O U T. Oh my god, that is that is a poor move and Smoothy's part, So Smoothy drops a minute. They organize a meeting, right the two generals quote unquote generals and Victor in a hotel Bangkok, and that is where the Victor Boots story sort of ends, at least
the free Victor Boots story ends. So they go through the deal and again he's being like, I can't believe he conducted his whole life like this because his his degree of concern with security is minimal. That he'll be like, you guys are getting like five thousand a K forty seven's also some surface to wear missiles and like writing
it on the hotel notepad. Amazing. Yeah, like normally this isn't the Like the d A rolled a yakuza arms dealer recently and they had to explain in court that like when he was talking about cake and ice cream, he meant like surface to wear missiles. The same for me. Actually, yeah, I'm just going to head down to the cake shop. That guy funked up by sending a selfie of himself with an anti tank weapon to the Jesus Christ. Yeah, it's good. It's a good picture. I'll send you that picture.
Because he does look like an international supervillain. He has blue aviators. I think, like, oh my gosh, some people know they're playing the part, you know what I mean, Yeah, you gotta lean in, and he leans in. But so about is in this in this room where he's negotiating with his two Colombian friends and income the Taype police. Right,
It's interesting the way the d A say it. They're like, he put his hands in the bag and we all pointed our guns at him, or like Victor, no, it's over, and and like they thought he was going to pull a gun on them, but like in the video he kind of is just like and then he goes. I think he says the game is up. He has some like Bond villain like a line of course, is he the poet? What did I say? Yeah, yeah, that's why that they're letting him out for his contribution to do.
What if there's ever like an obituary I want he was a poet, sharide just like he yes, quotely on that sure acclaimed podcast, this is Red Dart to describe a gunshot on his grooms. He was the poet, nothing else, poet and no other gigs. I was aware of what sliding dutist. And so they arrest him, right, They hold him in Thailand for a while. He fights the extradition. He's like, I'm just a businessman. I don't know what you're talking about. I just wanted to sell your cake
and ice cream or whatever. And eventually they bring him back to the United States. They try him in this federal jurisdiction in New York, where they try nearly every big terrorism case like this, right, like the recent oh nine A case was in the same jurisdiction, so like that makes sense. Yeah, they always do it in New York.
I think they His trial was like September or October, like in the you know, you're trying someone like seven years after nine eleven, six years after nine eleven in New York, around the anniversary of what happened eleven, right, so people are pretty and then you're like in this dude sold weapons to the Taliban, and he moved gold out of Afghanistan for al Quaeda, and he's pretty screwed.
Cancel culture strikes again. Yeah, the work mob came for Victor, and his wife says outside the court, which I thought was interesting that they're trying Nicolas Cage not my husband. Oh ship, that's actually a really interesting statement in terms of like media perceptions of people. I agree with that. Yeah, they do not go after this guy until the New York Times and then Victor and then what's it called the Nicolas Cage movie, Lord of War? Yeah, and then
you can't separate. I don't think the like, look, he's a piece of shit, but like he did make a movie about himself, though he didn't make that. No, someone else got that. They already sent like seven years after he gone down. Okay, I didn't look at the date that. Yeah, I was like, that's why I was imagining to get
completely different up until just this second. My mistake the Sundance film was yeah, like seven seven years later, Victor Boots, it would have been amazing if yeah, get that up with our listeners, ship, we could get it up to the nineties. I reckon m getting there the thumbs up. So I think they probably did write Like in organizations like the d A, in these big federal law enforcement agencies, there are a lot of people who want top jobs, and I think one of the ways to advance is
getting one of these big busts. Right. I have very little federal law enforcement understanding, but it strikes me that they kind of they had the d A agent in charge of his arrest on ABC I think or in sixty minutes or something, the guy talks about himself in the third person one point on there. It's a bit weird.
It's clearly like a career defining a thing, right, And I really don't think it would have been if like no one made a film about Monterroel Castle, right, he was selling all the weapons too, and they didn't you know, they didn't trap him in the same way. Actually, but it's it's not such a big thing. So Boot goes to jail, he's been in jail about twelve years now, and now the Biden administration seems to want rid of him or at least know that he's like worth offering.
And they offered him in trade for Snowdon apparently, uh yeah, and Russia didn't take that. Um. I think it's probably that they see more value in Snowden. But the yeah, they seem to have offered him again in the in this grinder wheeling trade. It's still unclear if Russia will accept him or not. Like we said before, it's a very weird practice to be like like Pokemon cards, Yeah, are like literally like the NBA, like the thing that yeah,
pretty greater works for. It's like you're literally creating like a fantasy team or whatever, the ship of of prisoners
and or people that you want the hostages. Yeah, And it's it's interesting to see like Russia kind of just like I don't know if they sort of want to be like, look how much we owned you, Like we made you trade the world's most notorious arms dealer for a basketball player, Like if they if they just see the kind of uh, I don't know, the ridiculousness of what they've done to somehow win for them, or if Russia wants him back because he has some kind of
intel that they're afraid of. I'm not sure if that's the case. He lived in Moscow for a while, but he I didn't know how close he was to the Russian state. I'm sure he knows some stuff. It's almost does not much of a state in the world that he doesn't have something on, right, So it's possible, And I guess he's kind of served his purpose to United States, which was just like, you know, we can find you anywhere,
we can come after you anywhere. Um, we can arrestue And I don't want to be like like pro armed dealer on the podcast, but like on the podcast, off the podcast, completely different, Unlike James is gonna say that we're not technically pro arms stealing. This is not not a pro stealing podcast. Technically, Yeah, that would be a good place for an ad pivot, wouldn't it. But do
you know who is pro stealing? Yeah, based on I don't know how long we have left though and mix here, but we can leave the joke in prove that we're funny, yeah exactly, that we sometimes think about the Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're considerate and funny y yeah, and kind and not pro arms dealer and most apportantly Yeah. Yeah. So Victor is in prison. He's been in prison for about twelve years.
He's got he got twenty five years. The judge actually was like, like, you've not proved he was going to do any crimes other than the ones you kind of talked him into, like a fair Yeah. Yeah, it woke judge because again, when they're meeting him, they're like, we want to kill Americans. Can you make sure the scopes a high enough magnification so we can see their Americans.
There's some specific dialogue about the sniper scopes to like to to ensure and they they're trying to get surface to our missiles as well, right, and surface to our missiles one of the harder things to acquire in the international arms market. And so he's gonna supply those. And they claim they're going to shoot down Arican airliners and do a terrorism. Yeah, that'll definitely get them mad. Yeah, they're again, well, but he only says that because the
two d a plants. Yeah, yeah, I don't think the dude would a bat nihilid either way. I mean, typical fed behavior right, Like, Yeah, they walked in there in the cool flannel shirts and he did Hey, who is excelled the doing crime. I don't want to do a crime. Let me escalate the level of crime. So he's in prison. They've offered to trade him. It remains to be seen, Like, I don't know how relevant he will be if he
comes out. It's interesting, Like the area I'm most familiar with off the books firearms transactions is in Myanmar, right, Robert, Now, I've spent some time writing about that, and the price of weapons going small arms going two rebels in Miama is insane right now, Like, it's incredibly high. And so maybe taking him out has changed that market a bit. I don't know. You'd think someone would have stepped in to fill that gap in the time that he'd been
out of the game. You'd think, especially after the giant clusterfucker of leaving Afghanistan by the States a year ago, we'd have done a lot more weapons onto the market. So what you're saying is there's a job opening. Yeah, get your resume ready, listeners, Yeah, you know, learn those languages. That's what I'm saying to the other applicants. Yeah, yeah, learned sanscrit. But on your resume, no one will call
you on it. It'll be fine. It's okay to lie about Sanskrit unless you're, I guess, going to theological college. But yeah, he's learned Sanskrit, he's learned a bunch of other languages in prison. He's probably writing poems in there right now. Yeah, he's probably dropping a book, is what he'll do, or come out we'll drop a book. Honestly, I'm not I wouldn't be surprised by that if that was true. I read a book written by one of the world's most famous international arms dealers. Add poets, and
that's right, add poets. Hey, based on what the quotes are that he's given so far, I'm sure he has really good writing. So yeah, yeah, who knows. We don't know how much money he has. No one seems it doesn't seem very clear. He's done a good job of hiding it. We don't know what the state of his businesses. It seems like he has just kind of pieced out hang Out and Joe and maybe now we'll be going back to Russia to live in his dacha and just write poetry and going water slides all day we can dream.
It feels like, yeah, if they offered him for Snowden already and now they're offering him again, is he he's either the only like quote unquote good Russian hostage, like worth worthy Russian hostage or they In my head, I feel like they're trying to make a big statement like Brittany Grinder is so important to us here you could have this man. That makes sense? Yeah, it does, Yeah,
I hope. I mean, look, what's happening to her is disgusting, right, and every day she spent abhorrent and so like, yeah, you hope that that they I think, Yeah, I think he's he's a big name and there's no real I don't know, it doesn't really serve the interests of the state to keep him in prison, right, Like the big win was getting him there, and that I think showed people doing what he does that like the US will come after you and and so like that was what
they wanted. Really, I think twelve years is a long enough time, you know, Like so I don't know, I don't understand the motivations of world leaders. But hopefully we get up this, I don't know, Hopefully Brittany grinded doesn't have to spend any longer in what I'm sure it is a pretty terrible Russian prison for having a vape pen,
because that is bollocks. And I just want to say before we finish up here that we are indebted to our friend Matt, who is at I think black Flag Enjoyer on Twitter or raccoon Liberation Front Black Flag Enjoyers Matt's Handel. Matt actually came on to help us do
an interview with this. Matt has worked in a lot of these places, not as an arms dealer, I should add, but doing some like civil engineering, and even thinks that he ran into Victor Boot in a bar in Somali land once and because if we discussed you would not know that the student was an arms dealer. Unfortunately, Matt's audio was unrecoverable and so we were very much debt for his help. And you should follow him on Twitter if you want to anything else. We should plug Sharine Garrison.
Now I think I think that doesn't for us today, so just google Victor Boot poetry. Enjoy your weekend.