Aircess and the Bout brothers

Followers of Victor Bout’s saga already know that not until the year 2001 Victor’s older Brother Sergey was not in the picture nor was he mentioned at all in any media or UN reports, including the UN report which invented the phantom empire in December of 2000. The infamous UN report S/2000/1225 which introduced to the world several lies, among them was the creation of an imaginary empire for Victor Bout, and which credibility was based upon the expertise of Richard Chichakli as stated in Paragraphs 138, 139, and 140 in that report.  However, the question to be raised here is why Sergey Bout was not mentioned at all in that report?

There are few possible reasons that could have caused Johan Peleman not to mention the name of Sergey Bout in the report, among these reasons:

1. Sergey Bout was not working with his brother Victor during the years 1998 until the issuance of the report in 2000, therefore he was not seen or mentioned

2. Sergey was working with Victor during those years; however, in a minute role and insignificant capacity, so he was not noticed or found worthy of inclusion

3. The report was falsified by the writers to serve their own purpose without proper investigation, and therefore, the existence of Sergey was not discovered

4. The creators of the report knew Sergey Bout existed; however, since he did not hold any qualifications to support the picture the experts were creating, the decision was to drop him from the report

5. The creators of the report knew Sergey Bout existed; however, they thought that the creation of a Co-Emperor in the invented Victor Bout’s Empire will reduce focus on Victor, and as such, will hurt their goals.

Based on what I know for a fact, the above stated reasons, and as awkward as they may sound, are all true and correctly applicable because:

1. Sergey Bout WAS NOT working with his brother Victor since 1998

2. If any relation between the brothers existed, it was minute, insignificant to business, and was limited to a brother helping his struggling brother

3. The S/2000/1225 UN report was falsified by a “philosopher” and what is reported there are lies not supported by true evidence or real investigation

4. Sergey Bout during those years did not speak English, nor was he in position of any qualifications that can add more credibility to the invented story

5. Peleman built the whole report around Victor Bout as he fabricated the Bout’s empire, the insertion of another Bout will shift focus and reduce the size at which Peleman wanted Victor to be

The questions to ask here are:

• Did the Bout brothers work together?

• What was the nature of the relations between Sergey and Victor? And

• Where was Aircess situated in all of this?

Victor Bout started his first business in the State of Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates at the end of 1993, precisely on November 03, 1993. The business was called Transavia Travel and Tourism, and it was a UAE Limited Liability Company (in comparison to a free zone enterprise) which required a UAE citizen to own more than 50% interest in order to obtain a license.  As such, Transavia Travel, and contrary to everything that has been written or available, was never owned by Victor Bout in majority. Transavia was rather owned by four partners, one from the UAE and three from Russia. The UAE partner was the highly visible and very-influential “Sultan Al-Swaidi,” the director of the office of Sheikh Sultan Al-Qasimi, the Ruler of the Emirate of Sharjah. The three Russians were Victor Bout, Sergey Menkaive, and Vitali Smirnoff, with Victor Bout being the minority owner!

Transavia was NOT an air operator nor was it licensed to operate or maintain aircraft. It was just a tour operator bringing tourists from the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to their preferred choice destination, the United Arab Emirates. The business of bringing Russian and CIS tourists to the UAE was booming throughout the mid-nineties with an average of 500,000 tourists per year. The average tourist was expected to spend no-less than US $10,000 to buy merchandise to take back with and sell in the ex-Soviet block; resulting in the creation of vast demand for cargo aircraft and cargo operators. Victor Bout recognized the need and decided to enter the air cargo business about the end of 1994. Prior to that date Victor Bout never owned an aircraft.

Transavia records are available directly from Sharjah Municipality or from the Chamber of Commerce, but of course, no one is interested in the collapse of the standing “theory” about Victor Bout which was invented by Johan Peleman and introduced to the world in December of 2000 in the UN report S/2000/1225.  Figure-1 above is a copy of Transavia records. The license indicates the date that was issued, the name of partners, date of inception, and the permitted activities.  Where was Sergey Bout during that time? He was still an employee of a government-owned entity in Russia!

Victor Bout entered the aviation industry after purchasing four small cargo aircraft type Antonov-8 about the end of 1994. The AN-8 was a military aircraft that held no certificate for civilian use anywhere in the world, including Russia, and Victor did not realize that he would not be able to operate these airplanes until after he concluded the deal and paid for the aircraft. However, the “starter mistake” turned into “beginner’s luck” after Angola accepted the aircraft and certified them for civilian operation. Suddenly, Victor became, and for the next 18 months, the ONLY cargo operator in the entire country of Angola. These aircraft were doing more than 300 block hours per month and bringing per-day what Victor has paid for the entire fleet.  That is where Aircess was born taking the convenient flag of registration in Liberia. Why Liberia? Because it is a “convenient flag” meaning it is an easy registration.

Almost all public accounts concerning the creation of Aircess in the UAE wrongly state that Aircess was founded during the period Chichakli was the commercial manager of the free zone.  Aircess was not formed in the UAE until about six months after Richard Chichakli left the free zone and returned to the US. Aircess was born in UAE on the first day of December 1996 as seen in Figure-2, and the time the license was issued, is the time Sergey Bout appeared in the UAE to manage the newly created company.

Sergey Bout is very different in comparison to his brother Victor. A blue-collar type of manager who prefers to do things by his own hands, just the opposite of the well-dressed, charming, articulate Victor who always delegates work to subordinates. And compared to Victor who fluently communicates in several languages including Russian, English, Portuguese, French, and Arabic, Sergey was only communicating in Russian at the time he first arrived to the UAE, causing him to be less visible and virtually unknown to those who did not speak Russian. And while the highly-visible Victor was socializing, entertaining people, building new relations, and generating business, Sergey the old-fashioned family man kept to himself, and was always found with his family if he was not around the aircraft or running the airlines in Sharjah airport. In a nutshell, the Bout brothers had very little in common to share other than the family name.

When it came to business Sergey and Victor Bout were the absolute opposites and their relations were almost confrontational when it came to managing people because of the vast difference in the management style.  Sergey is the type of hard-core manager that earned his way up the ladder through sweat and hard-works during the Soviet time and in a Soviet factory. He loves to get his hands on tools and show his subordinates the proper way to do things in or around aircraft.  Sergey Bout is the least spontaneous person when it comes to aviation, he takes his time and thinks through every item several times before reaching a decision, and that was every opposite to what Victor Bout is all about.  Victor is a delegative manager, he has seldom done anything by himself, touched a tool, or mentored a subordinate. He used to be the most spontaneous person in making decision and he was always trustful that his employees will implement his decision and carry out his orders. And while a verbal statement of account would be satisfactory to Victor to dispense cash, Sergey required a full written expense statement with supporting document, making him the most disliked person in Aircess and the least popular among the managers and employees of Victor Bout.

The listing of aircraft handwritten and given to me by Victor Bout (Figure-3) evidenced this split as it clearly indicates the disappearance of the Il-18s which were acquired by Sergey upon the split. However, for Peleman and the other “amature investigators” any aircraft that once owned by Victor Bout remained his position despite being sold, and therefore, the listing of companies that were presumed to belong to Victor kept expanding as the aircraft kept changing hands, and the Aircess operations in different countries were always mixed-up by many so-called experts who’s ignorance about aviation operations prevent them from understanding the need for creating entities in countries where aircraft is registered in order to maintain registration.

The lack of knowledge and confusion resulted in the invention of “Bout Phantom Empire” at the hand of the dense amateur Johan Peleman and similar obtuse characters claiming expertise.

Figure-4 below shows the chronicle Aircess throughout its existence. Omitted is Aircess-USA which was created for Victor by Michael Herridine for the sole purpose of purchasing a G1 aircraft in USA in 1997.

Download this article

Send mail to Richard Chichakli with questions or comments about this web site.
Last modified: 06/27/05