Life a bullet from Lord of War.
”
Lord of War’s Yuri Orlov is based on several real international arms dealers from recent history, chief among them being the notorious Viktor Bout.
Lord of War's true story inspiration is mainly Viktor Bout. If the allegations against him are true, Viktor Anatolyevich Bout was an even more successful smuggler than
Narcos: Mexico’s Amado Carrillo Fuentes. However, instead of cocaine, Bout’s primary products were firearms and ammunition. Based on multiple intelligence reports, eyewitness accounts, confessions, and paper and money trails collected by several law enforcement organizations, Bout used his African air freight business Air Cess to become the most prolific gunrunner in the world from the ‘90s to the early 2000s.
This earned Bout the nicknames “Sanctions Buster” and “Merchant of Death,” as he was particularly adept at getting around UN arms embargoes in order to supply various armed groups in countries such as Angola, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, the Congo, and Liberia. Bout also allegedly supplied weapons to war criminal and former president of Liberia Charles Taylor during the First Liberian Civil War in the late ‘90s, which is referenced in
Lord of Warwhen Orlov works with Liberian president and warlord Andre Baptiste (Eamonn Walker).”