In MERCHANT OF DEATH: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible (Wiley, April 2008, $15.95/Paper, ISBN: 978-0-470-26196-5) former West African Bureau Chief of the Washington Post Douglas Farah and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Stephen Braun detail how a small circle of U.S. officials and international investigators worked doggedly to shut down Bout’s arms pipelines, only to be trumped by Bout’s ingenuity and by their own inability—and, in some cases, unwillingness—to confront the dark side of the new world order.

On March 7^th, Thailand officials arrested Viktor Bout for allegedly attempting to sell and transport portable surface-to-air missiles and other weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.