ISIS Making $800 Per Year in Black Market Oil Sales

Amanda Casanova | ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor | Updated: Oct 22, 2014

ISIS Making $800 Per Year in Black Market Oil Sales

The Islamic State terrorist group is making an estimated $800 million per year in crude oil sales.

The sales come from oil regions that the group has captured in Iraq and Syria, according to a report by HIS, a U.S.-based global analytics group.

In September, the Deputy Director of the National Counterterrorism Center told lawmakers that ISIS was making $1 million per day. According to the new report, ISIS is making about $2 million per day.

The report said that the crude oil is sold to black market traders and reportedly, ISIS is only producing “a fraction” of the oil in the regions.

"Oil fuels ISIL's war machine, notably including the military vehicles vital to its movements and fighting capabilities," the report said. "Oil directly finances ISIL's myriad activities and encourages the activities of middlemen who sell, transport and export the oil and thus have a vested interest in ISIL."

Bhushan Bahree, a co-author of the IHS report, said that ISIS also sells the oil to middlemen who then take the oil to Jordan and other areas of Iraq that are not controlled by the militants. 

"It is very hard to intercept," Bahree said. "There has been smuggling of all sorts of things in this place for thousands of years."

Publication date: October 22, 2014



ISIS Making $800 Per Year in Black Market Oil Sales