ISIS daily profits from oil, theft, human trafficking exceed $3mn
Islamic State radicals gain more than $3 million per day just from oil sales, while also earning huge sums from human trafficking and extortion, report US intelligence officials and experts. They are wealthier than any other terror group in history.
The Islamic State group which seized huge terrorizes in Iraq and Syria, is now controlling eleven oil fields in both countries, US analysts told AP. They added that the militants are selling oil and other products via old established networks under the noses of Kurdish, Turkish and Jordanian authorities.
The resources of the Islamic State (IS) exceed that “of any other terrorist group in history,” a US intelligence official told the agency on condition of anonymity.
According to the analysts, the illegal oil is usually transported in tanker trucks.
“There’s a lot of money to be made,” said Dr. Denise Natali, who worked in Kurdistan as an American humanitarian official and is now a senior research fellow at National Defense University.
“The Kurds say they have made an attempt to close it down, but you pay off a border guard, you pay off somebody else and you get stuff through,” she added.
IS reportedly gets for its smuggled oil about $25 to $60 per barrel. Normally the same amount of oil costs about $100. However the total profit of the extremist group exceeds $3 million a day, said Luay al-Khatteeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center in Qatar.
