How man who helped snare ‘Merchant of Death’ arms dealer was highest paid informant in history
Crazy story from the Associated Press:
Carlos Sagastume, 40, earned more than $9 million over 15 years by risking his life to convince drug dealers and a weapons merchant that he was a criminal.
Collecting evidence against Viktor Bout was another major achievement in a remarkable career for Mr Sagastume.
He posed as a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, also known as FARC, to coax Bout to travel from Russia to Thailand in 2008 to arrange to send weapons to Colombian rebels to fight Americans.
…
Guatemalan-born Mr Sagastume began transporting drugs after he finished a five-year stint in Guatemala’s Army, where he specialised in gathering intelligence.
Speaking through an interpreter at Bout’s trial he said that after he was kidnapped by federal police in Mexico and a $60,000 ransom was paid to free him, he contacted the DEA in Guatemala, looking for a new line of work.
Fiction is great, but it doesn’t have anything on real life.