Iran shares a 1.458-km-long border with Iraq, of which some 500 km are in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
Smuggling of goods across this border has been happening for decades. Over time, this illicit trade has become consolidated, and operated by well organized criminal networks.
Those network of businessmen on either side, deploy smugglers or delivery drivers who transfer goods to collection points in the mountainous border regions and Kurdish couriers who carry the goods, by foot or on horseback, on the last part of the route across the border into Iran.
I work with my father and three brothers. It’s like a family business. We just do the horses, and we just do alcohol. There’s nothing else we can do to make money because there’s a lot of discrimination against Kurds in Iran. (Yassen, 22)
In the Tata mountains, controlled by the PUK, at one collection point where goods are amassed for couriers to collect, three PUK border guards were present.
Although standing at a collection point used by hundreds of couriers, they made no effort to intervene with smuggling operations.
Mostly, they let them do their job and it’s well known that border guards both sides take bribes, especially the Iranian ones, many of whom arrive as poor men and leave as rich men. (Ahmed)
Of course it’s busier now because in Iran they are short of everything, so the border guards are afraid because, after the sanctions were put back on Iran, they are overseeing the illegal transportation of a lot of goods. (Kareem)
There are other jobs in this area but the wages are very bad. I was unemployed and most people in my village were smuggling so I started too. It was easy to get into it because many people in all the Iraqi Kurdish border villages are smugglers, I don’t like this work. It’s not a nice job but I just can’t make the same money doing any other, legal work. (Mahmoud, 32)
I have eight horses, all carrying booze, whose haggard, weatherbeaten face makes him look a decade older. I hate this job, I really hate it, but I have no choice. This is no life. We all have families at home. My wife calls me all the time crying, and my little daughter calls me and says ‘Daddy, when are you coming home to buy me an ice-cream?' (Mohamed, 33)
The weirdest thing I carried was Tramadol tablets and battery acid for making drugs like crystal meth. There are a lot of drug laboratories on the Iranian side, close to the border. (Mahmoud)
Arms smuggling is not like the alcohol smuggling. That goes on all the time but weapons smuggling is a case of supply and demand. The smuggled guns go all over Iran - south, north, literally everywhere. (Soran)
Iranian diesel is much better quality than Iraqi diesel. (Mahmoud)
This is an illegal job and we’re afraid the Iraqi government will find out about it and we’ll lose our jobs. (Mohamed)
I have no problems with this job. I like it. But I never did anything else so this is the only job I know. It’s my life. (Fehrat, 22)
We were going down through the valley when they shot at us with machine guns from both sides. We had to leave our horses and run. They poured all the alcohol and diesel over 13 of the horses and set fire to them. We watched from where we were hiding in the mountain and we cried for our horses. (Taher, 27)
There are land-mines all over these mountains and the biggest problem is the floodwater from the melting snows which wash the mines down the mountainside and onto the paths. Some couriers have lost one or both legs doing this job and are now beggars on the streets back in Iran because they can’t do anything else. (Aram)
Hengaw Organisation for Human Rights said at least 21 couriers were victims of mine explosions in 2018, including five who lost their lives.
Credits:
Tom Westcott - Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime