Leaving the western part of Tripoli, crossing one suburb after another, one reaches a vast desert adjacent to the Tunisian border. Neighboring and remote cities and villages scatter on the edges of this desert, which hold stories about the goods and people smuggled across its borders.  Once a phenomenon that used to show itself modestly before the Libyan revolution, smuggling has grown out of control and has led to armed conflict, most recently between the cities of Zwara and Regdalin last April in which 26 people were killed.

Leaving the western part of Tripoli, crossing one suburb after another, one reaches a vast desert adjacent to the Tunisian border. Neighboring and remote cities and villages scatter on the edges of this desert, which hold stories about the goods and people smuggled across its borders.  Once a phenomenon that used to show itself modestly before the Libyan revolution, smuggling has grown out of control and has led to armed conflict, most recently between the cities of Zwara and Regdalin last April in which 26 people were killed.

“The phenomenon of smuggling dates back to the previous era and it peaked during the liberation period,” said a young Supreme Security Committee member in Zliten—on the Libyan-Tunisian border— who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.

“It is still flourishing, especially because the new Libyan authorities haven’t provided support to secure the borders through which two-way smuggling and illegal migration occur,” he said, explaining that operations are now handled more professionally with the availability of cars previously owned by Gaddafi Brigades.

Many young border employees, whether SSC members or national army personnel, were reluctant to speak to media. However, they all claimed that the government didn’t provide any kind of material or logistic support to them and have delayed salary increases, which they say would reduce the acceptance of bribes and turning a blind eye to such operations.

Hidden Goods

At the Ras Ajdir checkpoint near Tunisia, there are gas stations at which long lines of worn transport vehicles with large reservoirs of fuel are lined up. Overloaded vehicles also begin to cross the border to Tunisia, carrying hidden loads. At the first security portal, gasoline gallons are seized from inside a car.

At another checkpoint, an SSC officer carries out the inspection process with his colleagues. The first officer who also refused to disclose his name came from a border city that had taken a neutral stance in the April conflict between Zwara and Regdalin.

“What we seize in this portal, including fuel, food and other prohibited materials, such as alcohol and drugs, is nothing compared to what is actually smuggled in Al-Aseh Desert,” he said. “Especially in the regions located about 60 kilometers to the south of the coast.

“Smuggled goods were often passed to Libya as aid to an affected city, and sometimes to Tunisia as an aid to the desert areas which suffer from poverty or those experiencing natural disasters” he explained.

Creative Sneaking

Gasoline is the most commonly smuggled material, in addition to food items in large quantities. The SCC official said that smugglers used innovative methods for hiding goods to mislead the police. In less experienced cases, he described how smugglers enlarged the fuel tanks of their vehicles or turn the passenger chairs into tanks wrapped with sponge; methods that threaten the life of smugglers themselves.

Illegal migrants, however, are not as easy to conceal as gasoline.  Many are detained when crossing the borders without passports. A Tunisian immigrant who came to work in construction in Libya said that he could not find a job in Tunisia, especially after the revolution. “The stabilized living in Libya makes many unemployed Tunisians come here, searching for some kind of livelihood,” he said.

On the road from Ras Ajdir to the border crossing leading to the Tunisian city of Bin Qirdan one crossing deputy director said that smuggling goods was confronted with many strict procedures followed by the customs authority and that even accepting bribes by customs officers were dealt with firmly.  “The open land borders are the biggest problem experienced by Libya, which makes our work here useless in the absence of great power. We need to control violations,” he said.

A customs officer also said that they had arrested several criminals loyal to Gaddafi while trying to cross one border. The officer explained that during the last two shifts, more than five people had been arrested and referred to the respective local council. “The biggest problem, he says, “is that people of some smuggling areas, who supported Gaddafi, enter and go out of these areas, uncontrolled by the Libyan government.”