A Russian man believed to be one of the world's leading illegal arms dealers was arrested in Thailand today on suspicion of supplying weapons to a Colombian rebel group.

Viktor Bout, who has been accused by both the UN and Amnesty International of flouting arms embargos, was arrested at a five-star hotel in central Bangkok after a Thai court issued an arrest warrant, said Lieutenant General Pongpat Chayapan, of Thailand's police.

According to Thai officials, the warrant was based on an earlier one issued by the US drug enforcement administration. A US embassy spokesman congratulated Thailand on the arrest but gave no further details.

Bout made no comment as he was paraded before the media at the Bangkok police headquarters.

Officers had been pursuing him for months. The 41-year-old former Russian KGB officer allegedly sold armaments to anyone with the cash to pay, including forces in the Taliban and various warring sides in more than a dozen African countries.

Russia will seek Bout's extradition, according to one official in Moscow quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency. Bout is already subject to an international arrest warrant originating from Belgium.

According to UN reports, Bout's arms smuggling network included more than 50 aircraft around the world. His activities were chronicled in a book, Merchant of Death, published last year by two US investigative journalists. Bout was also the reported inspiration for a 2005 film, Lord of War, in which Nicholas Cage played a cynical arms dealer.

The book about Bout claimed that planes from the arms dealer's fleet made several airdrops of weapons to Farc guerrillas between December 1998 and April 1999.

Colonel Petcharat Sengchai, another Thai police officer, told reporters Bout had been wanted on charges of "procuring weapons and explosives for Colombian rebels", namely the Revolutionary Armed Forced of Colombia, or Farc.

This week Farc has been at the centre of Latin America's most serious international crisis for years, with Ecuador and Venezuela breaking diplomatic ties with Colombia and deploying troops to border regions.

The crisis began on Saturday when a Colombian air raid killed more than 20 Farc rebels, including a senior leader, at a base just inside Ecuadorean territory.

Colombia, which has battled the Marxist group for more than 40 years, hit back at criticism from its neighbours by claiming computer files seized from the Farc base showed Ecuador and Venezuela colluded closely with the group.

Although Bout has been investigated by police in several countries, he has never been prosecuted for arms dealing.

A 2005 report by Amnesty International alleged Bout was "the most prominent foreign businessman" involved in trafficking arms to UN-embargoed destinations from Bulgaria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and other countries.

The same year, the US treasury department named 30 companies and four people it said were connected to Bout's operations, placing them under sanction. In October 2006, President George Bush issued an executive order freezing assets belonging to Bout and several associates, and barring Americans from doing business with them.

According to a US treasury department statement on Bout's activities, he built up his arms empire after the collapse of the Soviet Union, acquiring a fleet of surplus or obsolete planes.

"Today, Bout has the capacity to transport tanks, helicopters and weapons by the tonnes to virtually any point in the world," the statement said. "The arms he has sold or brokered has helped fuel conflicts and support UN sanctioned regimes in Afghanistan, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Sudan."

The US government claims he made a $50m (£25m) profit supplying military equipment to the Taliban in Afghanistan before the regime was overthrown.