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| Thailand holds 'top arms dealer' | Thailand holds 'top arms dealer' |
| (30 minutes later) | |
| A Russian man suspected of being one of the world's biggest illegal arms dealers has been arrested in Thailand. | A Russian man suspected of being one of the world's biggest illegal arms dealers has been arrested in Thailand. |
| Viktor Bout - who has been dubbed the "merchant of death" - was picked up by police at a luxury hotel in Bangkok. | Viktor Bout - who has been dubbed the "merchant of death" - was picked up by police at a luxury hotel in Bangkok. |
| Thai police acted on a warrant issued by the US, which accuses Mr Bout of supplying arms to Colombian rebels. | |
| He has also been accused of breaking UN embargoes on arms sales to many countries from central Asia to Africa but has never been prosecuted. | |
| Mr Bout, 41, is said to have graduated from Moscow's military institute in the early 1990s. | |
| According to a 2007 book about him - entitled Merchant of Death - Money, Guns, Planes and the Man Who Makes War Possible - he set up a network of companies using redundant Soviet military planes. |