Way overposted (again) but I thought I'd share a good giggler:
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_122_1_eng.txt
Overseas Fuel Smuggling Exposed
Petrol earmarked for domestic consumption diverted for sale abroad in well-organised smuggling operation.
By Ziyad Khalaf al-Ajely on the Baghdad-Basra highway (ICR No. 122, 27-Apr-05)
At a checkpoint south of Baghdad, fuel smuggler Salim greeted the Iraqi police as if they were old friends. He showed them his fake government documents, which said he was an employee of the oil ministry, and after a brief, friendly exchange, he was on his way.
“For each petrol tanker, we pay 25,000 Iraq dinars (around 17 US dollars) at every checkpoint so they don't make trouble for us and are totally cooperative," Salim, who declined to give his full name, told this IWPR reporter who accompanied him on a recent smuggling trip from Baghdad to Basra.
Smuggling fuel is one of the biggest problems facing Iraq's oil industry. The government keeps petrol prices low but there is not enough of it to satisfy demand. So while fuel costs around five cents a gallon at a legitimate gas station, it is sold for ten times as much on the black market.
But the smuggling of petrol abroad is the by far the most profitable racket. Salim, 35, who says he has been smuggling for two years, spoke of a wide, sophisticated criminal network - including oil ministry and other government and security officials and fuel station owners - that controls the illegal sale of petrol abroad.
Salim, who graduated from the Oil Institute in Baghdad in 1997, says crooked oil ministry officials provide him - and others - with documents entitling him to deliver petrol to filling stations in the south off the country. Instead of transporting the fuel to the latter, who are in on the racket, Salim takes it directly to Abu Aflus port in Basra where it is smuggled overseas and sold at great profit - the proceeds used to pay off everyone in the smuggling chain. <...>