>> Click here to view black market products for this country

Between 2007 and 2008, a human smuggling gang was smuggling people from Iraq into the United Kingdom and charging $10,500 (7,500 British Pounds) a person. The gang, who authorities believe smuggled 1,000 people into the country, would often charge up to $21,000 (14,000 British Pounds) to people who were desperate to leave Iraq.

Source:  Peter Allen, “‘Baghdad ring’ of people-smugglers ‘helped hundreds of migrants sneak into Britain’ ,” Telegraph, March 4, 2010.

In 2009, Dubai customs seized more than a hundred cultural artifacts that were smuggled from Iraq.

Source:  Tamara Walid, “Dubai foils new attempt to smuggle Iraq artefacts,” Reuters, February 10, 2010.

After the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, 15,000 items were stolen or looted from the National Museum of Iraq.

As of February 2010, only 6,000 items have been returned.

Source:  Tamara Walid, “Dubai foils new attempt to smuggle Iraq artefacts,” Reuters, February 10, 2010.

In 2008, 630 arrest warrants were issued against officials suspected of corruption in Iraq, but only 97 people were convicted.

In addition, 135 cases of corruption involving 211 people who were mostly from the Oil Ministry were closed down by the decision of senior officials.

Source:  “Iraq chases many for corruption, catches few,” Reuters, December 23, 2009.

According to oil officials in Kuwait, $2.5 Million of diesel a day, or $912.5 Million a year, is smuggled into Iraq from Kuwait.

Source: “Kuwait MP calls to question Oil Minister over fuel smuggling to Iraq,” Alsumaria, September 30, 2009.

Between 2007 and 2009, US Border Patrol Agents apprehended 2, 285 illegal immigrants from China attempting to enter the United States from the US-Mexico border.

In addition to the Chinese, those apprehend by Border Patrol included nearly a thousands people from Europe, 80 from Pakistan, 36 from Somalia, 19 from Yemen, 25 from Iraq and 26 from Iran.

Source:  Pierre Thomas, “Exclusive: FBI Says Corrupt Border Officials Accepting Bribes Expose U.S. to Terrorist Risk,” ABC News, September 24, 2009.

Human traffickers are buying and selling at least 150 children each year in Iraq, according to an article in The Guardian Newspaper.  The children are being sold by gangs of traffickers at prices between $300 to $5500.

Source:  Afif Sarhan, “Iraqi babies for sale: people trafficking crisis grows as gangs exploit poor families and corrupt system,” The Guardian, April 6, 2009.

Time Magazine reports on how mothers in Iraq and selling their daughters out to human traffickers.  The report mentions that girls as young as 11 and 12 are being sold to traffickers at prices up to $30,000.  Others are sold for $2,000. 

The girls are then trafficked primary to other areas in the Middle East, such as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.  They are able to enter the destination country through the use of counterfeit passports or other forged documents. 

Source: Rania Abouzeid, “Iraq’s Unspeakable Crime: Mothers Pimping Daughters,” Time, March 7, 2009. 

The New Zealand Herald has an article on the market in smuggling fighters from Syria into Iraq.

From the NZ Herald:

For years, he operated along Syria’s remote border providing young Arabs from as far away as Morocco and the Gulf with passports, guides and weapons as they slipped into Iraq to wage war.

But recently, the Iraqi man known as Abu Ghadiyah began doing even more – launching armed forays into his homeland, United States and Iraqi officials say.

Finally the US lashed out, frustrated after years of vainly pressuring Syria to shut down his network supplying the Sunni insurgency.

The Americans carried out a daylight raid in a dusty farming community known as Abu Kamal, just across the border in Syria.

The US says Abu Ghadiyah and several bodyguards were killed. Syria says eight civilians died.

Whatever Abu Ghadiyah’s fate, the attack targeting him has become a seminal moment, casting rare light on the complex networks that recruit foreign fighters then deliver them across Syria to Iraq.