Business down sharply at Pakistan smugglers market

Washington Post:

Not that they really have the right to complain, but these are also dire economic times for smugglers and gun runners.

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"Business is zero these days," he said, sipping green tea out of a porcelain dish. Earlier in the war, he could make more than $1,200 a day. Now he is happy with $60. "It's now much more difficult to bring something in the old illegal ways."

The vendors at Sitara Market do not like to spell out in detail their illegal ways, or explain how they acquire their loot. Some goods, they say, trickle over the border from what Taliban fighters scavenge off the battlefield, or from theft along the military supply route through the Khyber Pass. There are black-market deals in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and donations flipped for profit.

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Business has fallen off for many reasons, the vendors say, from the devaluation of the rupee to stricter border security making shipment more difficult. Bombs frequently explode along their routes. Rising violence in Peshawar and other parts of northwestern Pakistan have frightened away customers.

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"It was very good business five or six years back, but now with the situation inside Pakistan, with the terror attacks, that has made the business really suffer," he said. "People don't want to come here."

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Perhaps there are a shrinking number of buyers because the Taliban are getting their but kicked. Whatever the cause this seems like good news to me.