Each day, dozens of trucks and fuel tankers wind the road along the waterway from the port of Basra, delivering their contraband to boats which sneak away into the Gulf waters with valuable cargo, according to News 24 Tuesday. The smugglers communicate stealthily by portable satellite phones, and avoid anyone who might question them and untangle their secret networks. Hands blackened by oil, a former engineer in Saddam's once burgeoning weapons industry, is now a smuggler. He waits in the harbor of Hamdan village for a 36 ton delivery of oil for his rickety old boat. After he dodges military patrols, he'll receive US$500 for his labour. He has been laying low waiting in this sleepy village for his shipment of oil coming from Salaheddin province to the north. The full cargo will be packed on five or six boats. Just two kilometers away, Iraqi police man checkpoints but let fuel tankers go through, without checking if the cargo is legal. Asked why they let the tankers go unimpeded, a young officer says: "The British have told us to let them pass." A representative of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Steve Bird, concedes smuggling is a problem but said the British fly helicopter missions as part of efforts to stop the illegal trade. "We are doing a lot to prevent this," Bird said. But until now, the rampant illegal trade has damaged the coalition's efforts to get the oil industry back up and running, even as the US-led civil administration banks on $3bn in oil revenue to pay half of Iraq's budget in 2003. The Shatt al-Arab's police chief complains of not being supplied with the proper equipment to make a difference. "We have 12 small boats and only three small engines," he said. The water is filthy, with a mix of red, blue and green from the gasoline spewed from boat engines. A Basra civic leader complains on condition of anonymity that service station owners in Basra are selling off their fuel at five times the price to traffickers. As a result, filling stations are under-stocked and the lines last for hours. A huge trade on the black market existed under Saddam, who was eager to operate outside the boundaries of the United Nations trade sanctions and oil-for-food program, which carefully controlled the spending of his oil revenues and funneled them to humanitarian projects. Saddam's son Uday, killed along with his brother Qusay last week by the Americans, was said to have been a key player in the illegal oil trade. With Uday gone, smugglers look to cash in on the illegal revenue that was formerly dominated by Saddam's son, the civic leader said.