The Economist has a fascinating profile on Victor Bout, an infamous Russian arms dealer upon whom "Lord of War" starring Nicholas Cage was loosely based. Nicknamed the "Merchant of Death," Bout now sits in a Bangkok prison awaiting extradition to the US.
Mr Bout’s genius was to employ impoverished ex-Soviet pilots, ready to risk their lives for hard currency, and to send his aircraft anywhere they were needed (he rarely flew on them himself). At times that meant getting United Nations peacekeepers into Somalia, or delivering aid for the British government. More often, as the UN eventually described, he provided the logistics that kept cruel civil wars alive. Reportedly Mr Bout supplied, simultaneously, both the rebels and the government during Angola’s civil war.
Similarly, he collaborated first with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and then, after one of his aircraft was impounded for months by the Taliban, switched to trading with the Islamists. He probably helped the American forces to fly material to Afghanistan and certainly did so in Iraq. He was active in eastern Congo, where years of war have led to the deaths of millions.
Also, read this detailed account from Mother Jones of the sting that led to Bout's capture and arrest.