Syrian oil Smuggling ring busted in Iraq

Washington Post:

Police and anti-corruption officials have broken up a vast smuggling ring, stopping more than 1,200 trucks full of crude oil illegally bound for Syria over the past three weeks, the Iraqi government said Friday.

The bust, the largest ever by Iraqi authorities, evolved over more than a month of investigation, surveillance and periodic arrests. It culminated this week with the apprehension of the alleged ringleader, Ahmed Omar al-Khatab, in the northwestern border town of Rabiyah, where the trucks are now parked in a giant depot under police guard.

Iraqi officials said they seized roughly 50,000 metric tons of oil -- roughly equivalent to 400,000 barrels, about a fifth of Iraq's average daily production -- valued at nearly $28 million, according to Adnan Ali al-Kadhimi, an adviser to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari. U.S. forces were not involved in the sting, Ali said.

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Oil income of about $2 billion a month accounts for more than 90 percent of the revenue collected by Iraq's government. At roughly 1.9 million barrels per day, the country's oil industry is producing below pre-invasion levels and has been plagued by problems, including dilapidated infrastructure, sabotage of pipelines and refineries by insurgents, and rampant smuggling and corruption.

Earlier this year, Mishan Jubouri, a member of the Iraqi National Assembly, was charged with stealing funds allocated to the protection of pipelines. He left the country when an arrest warrant was issued.

Because Iraq's refining capacity is so limited, the country spends nearly $500 million a month importing refined fuels such as gasoline, which it sells at heavily subsidized prices. Hussein Uzri, head of the Trade Bank of Iraq, estimated in a recent interview that as much as 30 percent of imported fuels are unlawfully spirited out of the country and resold.

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