A New York grand jury indicted alleged international arms dealer and war profiteer Viktor Bout last week for using front companies and New York banks to buy two Boeing jets in violation of U.S. sanctions, reports moneylaundering.com.

The Russian-born Bout and his U.S. partner Richard Chichackli, who supervised Bout's finances, face charges of money laundering and wire fraud for transferring at least $1.7 million through several New York banks and a Salt Lake City bank between June and December 2007 as part of a scheme to buy the planes from an unnamed Florida aviation company, says the news source.

Using front companies, Bout and Chichackli, a certified public accountant and former fraud examiner, moved the funds from accounts in Cyprus, Kazakhstan and Russia through banks in the United States on behalf of another company, Samar Airlines, which Bout secretly owned, reports moneylaundering.com. The banks cleared the transfer of the funds into the Florida aviation company's account, according to the indictment.

Prosecutor's said last week that they have moved to seize assets in several U.S. financial institutions, reports the news source.

Thailand authorities have held Bout in prison since March 2008 on U.S. charges of selling weapons to a Colombian separatist group that has been sanctioned for terrorism by the United States. In August, a Thai court ruled against extraditing Bout to the United States because the country didn't list this group as a terrorist organization.

The new charges likely won't impact Bout's extradition, said Roscoe Howard, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who thinks that Bout will remain imprisoned in Thailand for the foreseeable future, according to the news source.

Bout and Chichackli, who is currently on the run, violated U.S. sanctions administered in July 2004 against Liberia as part of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, according to the indictment.

In June 2004, the U.N. Security Council placed Bout on a sanctions list for allegedly supplying weapons to Liberian dictator Charles Taylor during that country's civil war. Bout was also placed on the U.N. travel ban list in March 2004 for his association with Taylor.

According to the indictment against Bout, one of the many companies he owned "played a key role in supplying arms to the regime of former President Charles Taylor of Liberia and the Sierra Leone rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). A United Nations committee and the Department of the Treasury determined that in exchange for these supplies, Bout received payment from Liberia's international ship registry as well as diamonds and other valuable commodities acquired illegally by Taylor's associates and the RUF."

But Liberia and Sierra Leone are not the only countries whose conflicts Bout allegedly fuelled. According to the indictment behalf of the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York: "Since at least in or about 1996, Viktor Bout....the defendant, has operated a network of air cargo companies based in countries in the Middle East, Africa, Eastern Europe and the United States. In addition, since at least 1996, Bout has controlled a large private fleet of Soviet-era cargo aircraft. Shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Bout was able to acquire surplus or obsolete airplanes which he used to deliver arms and ammunition.

"In large part because of his extensive network of aircraft and operations companies, between 1996 and 2008, Bout had the capacity to transport large-scale military machinery, as well as extensive stores of weapons to virtually any location in the world. According to the United Nations and the Department of the Treasury, for example, the arms Bout has sold or brokered have helped fuel conflicts and support regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan," says the indictment.

To read the indictment in full, click on the image below: