Viktor Bout: Who is the ‘Merchant of Death’ released in Brittney Griner exchange?

Viktor Bout, one of the world’s most infamous arms dealers, has been released from US custody.

Also known as the Merchant of Death, he was freed as part of a prisoner exchange with basketball star Brittney Griner, detained in Russia.

Bout, a former Soviet military translator turned international arms dealer, was imprisoned for more than a decade.

“Viktor Bout, in my eyes, is one of the most dangerous men on the face of the Earth,” Michael Braun, the former chief of operations for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said in 2010.

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