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Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

Welcome to the Neno's Place!

Neno's Place Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality


Neno

I can be reached by phone or text 8am-7pm cst 972-768-9772 or, once joining the board I can be reached by a (PM) Private Message.

Established in 2006 as a Community of Reality

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    Unprecedented Shocking Facts In The World: The Corruption Cartel On Iraq's Borders "Worse Than The L

    Rocky
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    Unprecedented Shocking Facts In The World: The Corruption Cartel On Iraq's Borders "Worse Than The L Empty Unprecedented Shocking Facts In The World: The Corruption Cartel On Iraq's Borders "Worse Than The L

    Post by Rocky Mon 29 Mar 2021, 8:49 am


    [size=32][rtl]Unprecedented Shocking Facts In The World: The Corruption Cartel On Iraq's Borders "Worse Than The Law Of The Jungle"[/rtl]

    March 29, 2021
    156
    [/size]

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    An Iraqi security officer on the Iraqi side of the Mandali border crossing with Iran on July 11, 2020
    © AFP / Thaer Al-Sudani Archives
    Baghdad (AFP) Along the land and sea borders of Iraq, an intricate and complex cartel carries out customs evasion operations, through which millions of dollars that are supposed to enter government coffers are diverted into the pockets of parties, armed groups and officials.
    A customs official says this meshed network is “unspeakable. It is worse than the law of the jungle. ”
    "In the jungle, the animals eat at least and get saturated," he adds. These men never convince. ”
    Like most government officials, port workers and importers whom AFP has interviewed over a period of six months, the employee asked to speak anonymously for fear of endangering his life.
    In the country that ranks 21 in the world in the corruption ladder, according to the non-governmental organization Transparency International, boring bureaucracy and chronic corruption pave a pathway to absorb state resources. In an economy based primarily on oil, with great weakness in the agricultural and industrial sectors and the absence of any possibility to obtain revenues from them, customs duties are the most important source of revenue.
    However, the central Iraqi government does not control these resources, which are distributed among the parties and armed groups, most of which are close to Iran, which share control of the border crossings and embezzle as much money as possible.
    "There is a kind of collusion between officials, political parties, gangs and corrupt businessmen," Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi told AFP, noting that "this system as a whole contributes to the plunder of the state."
    [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]A map of the Iraqi border crossings with neighboring countries
    © AFP
    - 'Designed to fail' system -
    Iraq imports the vast majority of its goods, and is mostly dependent on Iran, Turkey and China for everything from gas to electricity, food and electronics.
    Officially, Iraq imported $ 21 billion worth of non-oil goods in 2019, according to the latest data provided by the government, most of which passed through five official crossings on the 1,600-kilometer-long border with Iran, and one on the border with Turkey, which extends over about 370 km. And through the giant port of Umm Qasr in the southern province of Basra.
    But the Iraqi import system is cumbersome and outdated. A World Bank report in 2020 spoke of "endless delays, high fees and exploitation."
    "If you want to import in the right way, you end up paying thousands of dollars in delay penalty," an importer based in a country in the Middle East told AFP, adding that this system "is designed to fail."
    This led, according to officials, port workers, importers and analysts, to the emergence of a parallel import system through the land crossings and the port of Umm Qasr, to be undertaken by parties and armed groups. Most of the profits are generated from Umm Qasr port, being the port through which the largest amount of goods enter the country.
    Officials confirmed to AFP that most of the entry points are informally controlled by factions belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition that brings together Shiite factions that have been integrated with the security forces. These factions have economic offices to finance themselves, and they were established even before the formation of the Popular Mobilization Forces.
    "If you want a short cut, you go to the militias or parties," said an Iraqi intelligence officer who investigated the tax evasion issue.
    He added, "The importers say they prefer to lose a hundred thousand dollars (paid as a bribe) rather than losing their goods entirely."
    [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]Iraqi Finance Minister Ali Allawi during an interview with Agence France-Presse on June 22, 2020
    © AFP / Ahmed Al-Rubaye Archive
    Members of the parties and factions benefiting from this, or their acquaintances and relatives, work as border agents or inspectors and in the police, and take money from importers who want to bypass official procedures or obtain a discount on fees.
    The PMF publicly denies the allegations.
    However, sources close to militant factions such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq and Kataib Hezbollah have acknowledged the influence of different factions on the borders, with many sidewalks and centers through which tax evasion takes place on types of goods, in line with what customs officials and the intelligence officer said to France Press.
    - "Savior" -
    Umm Qasr port workers, officials and analysts confirmed that the Badr Organization, for example, a faction founded in Iran in the 1980s, runs the Mandali crossing on the Iranian border.
    "If you are a cigarette dealer, go to the economic office of Kataib Hezbollah in Jadriya (in Baghdad), knock on the door, and say I want to coordinate with you," the intelligence officer said.
    One of the main persons in the wheel of corruption is the "savior", that is, the government customs official who often acts as a mediator for armed groups and political parties.
    "There is no such thing as a" savior "without affiliation, the intelligence officer said." They are all supported by the parties. "
    After paying cash in exchange for small operations or through bank transfers for larger transactions, the broker falsifies official papers, by distorting the type, number and total value of the commodity being imported, which leads to a reduction in the value of the customs duties that merchants have to pay, which in the end are much less than Actual value of the merchandise.
    One importer told AFP that registering a smaller amount than the real amount would provide the importer with a customs duty rebate of up to 60 percent.
    A common example of this is the import of cigarettes, whose official import tariff is 30 percent of their value, in addition to an additional 100 percent to raise their price in the local market in order to encourage consumers to buy goods manufactured in Iraq.
    To reduce these fees, cigarettes are often registered as tissue paper or plastic goods, which in return means paying much lower customs tariffs.
    "Instead of paying at least $ 65,000 per truck, you end up paying only $ 50,000," the customs official says.
    Clearers also manipulate the total estimated value of the shipment. This value is initially recorded on the import license, but the broker has the power to review it at the point of entry and thus reduce it in order to reduce the value of the fees.
    An official in Umm Qasr told France Press that a customs agent evaluated a shipment of iron so cheaply that the importer paid customs duties of $ 200,000, while he should have paid more than $ 1 million.
    "This significant influence of the savior is not natural at all," the importer said.
    [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]The ranking of Iraq on the corruption ladder according to Transparency International
    © AFP
    And through relationships with influential people, some goods leak out without scrutiny at all.
    In this context, the customs officer said, "I am not corrupt, but I had to pass the shipment without inspection because it is linked to an enforceable party."
    In other cases, merchants take forged import licenses and receipts to the Central Bank of Iraq, which then sends a payment in US dollars to a fake shipping company outside Iraq.
    These transactions allow money laundering, according to a customs agent and Iraqi bank officials.
    An importer told AFP that he had paid a customs official in Umm Qasr to approve the entry of used electrical equipment, the import of which would be an offense.
    He added that he regularly paid "a bribe to a port police officer" to inform him of the surprise checks. For an additional fee, the officer offered him "to send patrols to disrupt the exit of competing goods."
    - 'Real mafia' -
    Seeing the border outlets as an infinite source of money, civil servants pay their superiors money to appoint them there.
    An official at the Mandali crossing boasts that the crossing pays bribes of up to ten thousand dollars for the youngest employee every day.
    Finance Minister Allawi expresses his regret, saying, "The price of the smallest job in customs ranges from 50 thousand dollars to one hundred thousand dollars, and sometimes increases to many times that."
    Parties and armed groups use their political influence to maintain their positions that allow them to accumulate money, and they do not hesitate to threaten the use of violence.
    A worker at the Mandali crossing told AFP that he once delayed the entry of a shipment coming from Iran because it lacked official papers, but the messenger threatened him, claiming that he was a member of the Popular Mobilization Forces and insisted on entering the goods without paying the fees, which the worker eventually allowed.
    The intelligence officer recounted that an informant at the Zurbatiyah crossing on the border with Iran, run by Asaib Ahl al-Haq, was repeatedly placed on administrative leave due to obstructing the import of Iranian products without customs duties.
    Ultimately, he could not stand the pressure. "We came back later to talk to him again and found that he had joined Asaib," the officer said.
    A senior employee at the border outlets told AFP that he receives regular calls from private numbers threatening to threaten his relatives by name, in an attempt to intimidate him and push him to stop inspections of goods in the ports.
    "We can't do anything because we're going to be killed," the customs officer said. People are afraid ... it's a real mafia. ”
    - 'No competition' -
    Renad Mansour of the Chatham House Research Center explains that this system has become the lifeblood of Iraqi parties and armed groups, including the PMF factions loyal to Iran.
    These parties professionalized this issue of illicit financing after the defeat of the Islamic State in 2017, after they could no longer access the large defense budgets.
    This network became more active after former US President Donald Trump imposed harsh sanctions on Iran.
    In March 2020, the United States blacklisted the Khamail Marine Services Company, a shipping company in Umm Qasr, for coordinating with armed Shiite groups to help the Iranian Revolutionary Guard "evade the Iraqi government's inspection protocol."
    It also imposed sanctions on two Iraqis and two Iranians associated with the company for financing the Kataeb and the Lebanese Hezbollah. The US embassy in Iraq refused requests from Agence France-Presse for comment.
    The spoils are shared smoothly between parties and armed groups, despite occasional rivalries between them.
    Mansour says, "One border crossing can generate up to 120 thousand dollars a day (in illegal fees)" shared by several groups "who may be enemies with each other."
    "There is no competition," the Iraqi intelligence officer said. They know that if one of them falls, the others will fall. ”
    In February, two Asaib Ahl al-Haq members were killed in two separate incidents that two PMF sources described to France Press as having "economic backgrounds."
    But these killings are rare.
    - Reform remained deficient in reform -
    This parallel system deprives the state of funding sources that could have been allocated to schools, hospitals, and other public services.
    "We should get seven billion dollars from customs annually, but in reality, only 10 to 12 percent of customs resources reach the Ministry of Finance," Minister Allawi told AFP.
    Transparency International reported in 2020 that Turkey and China, which are two of the largest exporters to Iraq, are the two countries that monitor the least control of corruption in the context of their exports to Iraq.
    The Iraqi consumer is paying the price for all this corruption.
    "As a consumer, you are the one who ends up paying for this corruption," an Iraqi official told AFP.
    Since the first weeks of assuming the premiership in May 2020, Mustafa Al-Kazemi made reform of the border crossings a top priority. With the sharp decline in oil prices, Iraq is in dire need of additional revenues.
    On highly publicized trips to Umm Qasr and Mandali, Al-Kazemi pledged to send new forces to every border crossing and to apply regular rotation in customs functions to dismantle the circles of corruption.
    On paper, this should work. On an almost daily basis, the Border Ports Authority reports on seizures of goods that were attempts to smuggle them without paying fees.
    But with the decline in imports in 2020 due to the Corona virus and temporary customs exemptions granted to medicines and food, the overall impact of these measures was modest.
    The Border Ports Authority said that Iraq collected $ 818 million in fees in 2020, which is slightly higher than $ 768 million in 2019.
    - "We pay the double" -
    Importers, loyal and responsible for these procedures consider the dust in Laayoune.
    Importers told Agence France-Presse that, while some are now paying government fees, they still simultaneously pay clearers to make sure the goods are not arbitrarily delayed.
    "In the end, we pay twice," said an Arab businessman who has been exporting goods to Iraq for more than a decade. Meanwhile, those with good relationships were not affected by the new measures.
    "Nothing has changed," an Iraqi importer said. You can bring weapons or anything else you want through Mandali without an import license and without paying customs duties. ”
    The man said that he entered building materials through the Mandali crossing without paying customs duties even after the reforms announced by Al-Kazemi.
    Security personnel describe it as chaotic. "The police there are all involved in bribery," a soldier whose unit was briefly deployed in Mandali told AFP. Merchants are paying money madly. We arrested a man, but they took him out the next day. ”
    The senior border official acknowledged that some additional deployments of pledged security personnel never took place.
    "Other times, it was a play, as only about twenty men were published," he told AFP.
    Importers and officials who spoke to France-Presse say that the main reason these measures failed is that "the rotation of employees did not include a crucial element in the corruption machine: the savior."
    "The broker is the main mediator of corruption, it's still there," the customs official said. One rotten apple will spoil the rest. ”
    - “Corruption still exists” -
    Mediators of armed parties and groups also still exist.
    "There is a ready room that you can go into now and sort everything there," the Iraqi importer said.
    A US Defense Department official told AFP that Kataib Hezbollah, which is accused of firing rockets at the US embassy, ​​was forced to close its economic office at Baghdad International Airport to prevent its access to valuable goods exempt from customs duties.
    "But she can still get on the plane and do whatever she wants," the official added. Corruption still exists ”.
    Instead of communicating with each other overtly, the facilitators have moved to encrypted messaging apps such as WhatsApp.
    "Our work is already getting more difficult because they are taking more precautions," the intelligence officer said.
    Despite the partial success in increasing state revenues, the cartel is holding on.
    Officials expected that merchants would increasingly avoid state-run crossings and rely either on smuggling or unofficially importing through Kurdistan to the north. They warned that dismantling the network entirely would lead to violence that Al-Kazemi may be unprepared for.
    "These interests are worth millions of dollars," the intelligence officer said. One pavement in Umm Qasr is equivalent to a state budget, ”he said, adding,“ They will not give up easily. ”
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