Leonid Efimovich Minin (; ua, Леонід Юхимович Мінін, Leonid Yukhymovych Minin; born 14 December 1947) is an international arms trafficker. He was arrested on August 4, 2000 by Italian authorities in

Cinisello Balsamo Cinisello Balsamo (; ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) of about 75,200 inhabitants in the Metropolitan City of Milan in the Italian region of Lombardy, about northeast of Milan city center. Cinisello Balsamo borders the following municipalities: ...

near

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

. Minin had been under surveillance since 1992 for his suspected illegal arms dealings, mostly to West African nations.FRONTLINE/WORLD . Sierra Leone - Gunrunners . Gallery of International Arms Dealers . Leonid Efimovich Minin , PBS
/ref> He was sentenced to two years in prison in Italy. He was born in Ukraine, but moved to Israel in the 1970s. In the mid-1970s, Germany arrested him for falsifying identity documents and he was suspected of theft of art.Catching the Middlemen Fuelling African Conflicts
Gail Wannenburg, SAIIA He moved to Bolivia, Switzerland, Germany, Monaco, and Italy. In the 1990s he opened a timber business registered in

Zug , neighboring_municipalities = Cham, Baar, Walchwil, Steinhausen, Unterägeri , twintowns = Fürstenfeld (Austria), Kalesija (Bosnia-Herzegowina) Zug (Standard German: , Alemannic German: ; french: Zoug it, Zugo r ...

in Switzerland as well as offices in

Monrovia Monrovia () is the capital city of the West African country of Liberia. Founded in 1822, it is located on Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic coast and as of the 2008 census had 1,010,970 residents, home to 29% of Liberia’s total population. As the ...

in Liberia and

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

in Israel. In the latter 1990s, Minin operated a company in Liberia, Exotic Tropical Timber Enterprise, that shipped timber from the country but also imported weapons that it supplied to the Liberian warlord and then president Charles Taylor. Taylor supplied the arms to militants of the

Revolutionary United Front The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) was a rebel group that fought a failed eleven-year war in Sierra Leone, beginning in 1991 and ending in 2002. It later transformed into a political party, which still exists today. The three most senior surv ...

in neighboring Sierra Leone as part of his sponsorship of their war in an effort to take control of that country's diamond trade. In arresting Minin in 2000, Italian police found documents regarding his transactions with Taylor in Minin's belongings. The arms allegedly came from Aviatrend, a Russian company owned by Valery Cherny. The same Aviatrend has been involved in money laundering by

Slobodan Milošević Slobodan Milošević (, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, a constituent republic of ...

Nicolas Cage Nicolas Kim Coppola (born January 7, 1964), known professionally as Nicolas Cage, is an American actor and film producer. Born into the Coppola family, he is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Gu ...

's character in the film ''

Lord of War ''Lord of War'' is a 2005 American crime drama film written, produced, and directed by Andrew Niccol, and co-produced by and starring Nicolas Cage. The film was released in the United States on September 16, 2005, to positive reviews and grosse ...

'' is a composite of Minin and another arms smuggler,

Viktor Bout Viktor Anatolyevich Bout (; russian: link=no, Виктор Анатольевич Бут; born 13 January 1967) is a Russian arms dealer. A weapons manufacturer and former Soviet military translator, he used his multiple companies to smuggle a ...

References

Ukrainian gangsters Arms traders 1947 births Living people Arms trafficking {{Ukraine-bio-stub

See also

References