As mentioned in the post the other day on the arrest of the 5 people for smuggling arms from North Korea into Thailand by plane, noted arms trafficker Viktor Bout is in a Thai jail and there may be a possible connection between him and this plane – see posts on Bout here, here, and here. Now, AP reports there is indeed some connection with Bout. Key excerpt:

Thai officials impounded the Ilyushin Il-76 transport plane when it landed in Bangkok on Saturday to refuel, and discovered what they said was 35 tons of explosives, rocket-propelled grenades, components for surface-to-air missiles and other armaments — exported in defiance of a U.N. embargo against North Korea.

Hugh Griffiths, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told The Associated Press the aircraft was previously registered under a company named Beibars, which has been linked to Serbian arms trafficker Tomislav Damnjanovic.

In the past, it has also been registered with three companies identified by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control as firms controlled by Bout. The U.S. is trying to extradite Bout, who was arrested in March 2008 during a U.S.-led sting operation and subsequently indicted on four terrorism charges in New York.

The same AP story also reports on likely destinations for the weapons:

Researchers said the arms were likely destined for African rebel groups or a rogue regime such as Myanmar. The aircraft’s documentation had falsely described its cargo as oil-drilling equipment, and declared it was bound for Sri Lanka. Thai officials are skeptical that that was the true destination.
…
Griffiths said the past owners of the aircraft have been documented by the United Nations as trafficking arms to Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan and Chad. He said the plane also was used to ship arms from the Balkans to Burundi in October.

“They are like flocks of migrating birds, these aircraft. They change from one company to another because the previous company has either been closed down for safety reasons or been identified in a U.N. trafficking report,” Griffiths said.

Siemon Wezeman, a Senior Fellow at SIPRI, said the types of arms found in the aircraft — used to add firepower against planes and tanks in the arsenal of government forces — were typical of those used by insurgent movements, and raised suspicion they could be headed for an African rebel group.

Possible buyers included Sudan, which might pass the weapons to rebel groups in Chad, and Eritrea, which might keep them for its own arsenal or pass them on to warring factions in Somalia, said Christian LeMiere, editor of the London-based Jane’s Intelligence Weekly.

BP: A fellow Asian Correspondent blogger says don’t discount the theory they were heading for Sri Lanka.

Also, from the WSJ:

Intelligence experts said the use of a transport plane rather than a ship, and the decision to land in Thailand — a country known to cooperate heavily with U.S. intelligence services — indicates this may have been an unusual or hastily planned delivery.

Flying into Bangkok “was certainly a high-risk mission,” said Rohan Gunaratna, a security expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. That could signify “there was an urgent need to move” to get the weapons to an active conflict zone, he said.

BP: Maybe the crew will talk more now that more serious charges which may result in the death penalty is on the table.

h/t to Newley for the WSJ article who has some other interesting quotes in this post here.