But in fact, most of this activity is legal. The dubious activity really only begins at the Syrian border. In Syria cigarette prices are higher and smugglers make a profit by bringing the cigarette cartons from Mosul to Syrian border areas, around 160km away.
Most of the journey is made openly though and recently NIQASH correspondent, Elias Saleh, undertook the same journey as the cigarettes do every day.
The first leg of the journey involved riding with Hassan Yousef, a young villager in his 20s. Yousef was carrying the cases of cigarettes in a lightweight, late-model Kia truck to Sinjar (pictured), a small town near the Syrian border. The young man had not completed his education but worked for what he described as one of the “companies” smuggling cigarettes across the border.
“Actually it’s not a company officially,” Yousef explained himself. “But the structure is like that of a real company.”
His “company” charges US$8 per pack of cigarettes if the buyer wants insurance; the price goes down to US$4 if they don’t want insurance. “Then guys like me transport the goods. There are around 50 Kia trucks and each can carry up to 120 master cases. There are also some other larger vehicles that can take bigger loads,” he said. Yousef loaded around a hundred master cases onto his truck and the journey began.
Another smuggler, who wanted to remain anonymous, believed that around 3,000 master cases were being smuggled into Syria daily. This was despite the tense political situation in Syria. When Syria was more peaceful, he was sure that this amount would have been double.
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