“Currently, talks are underway on exchanging Bout for Griner,” TASS reported, referencing information provided by “a source in the Public Monitoring Commission.”

The Biden administration offered to swap Bout for Griner but negotiations are still premature, based on an account from a nongovernment inside source, Forbes reports.

Since February, Griner, 31, has been detained in Russia after Russian customs officials allegedly found a vape cartridge containing hash oil in her luggage at a Moscow-area airport. If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, according to the Insider.

Bout, who was given the moniker of “Merchant of Death,” was issued a 25-year sentence in federal prison by a New York federal court in 2011 for plotting to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group.

Viktor-Bout

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