Kuwait customs have foiled an attempt to smuggle hundreds of tonnes of heavily-subsidised diesel to an Asian country, the customs department said in a statement on Tuesday. An Asian man who offered to bribe a customs officer at Kuwait's main commercial port of Shuwiakh to facilitate shipping the smuggled fuel, was arrested by police, the statement said.
It estimated the busted quantities at around 350 tonnes but did not name the destination country, other than to identify it as being in Asia. Local media and MPs in the dissolved parliament have repeatedly claimed that large quantities of Kuwaiti fuel are being regularly smuggled by sea to neighbouring Iran and Iraq. In June, the media reported that authorities busted a ring linked to a regional intelligence service that has smuggled large quantities of fuel to a neighbouring country from a small port usually used by Iranians. Fuel in Kuwait is sold at a heavily-subsidised price that has not changed for about 12 years.
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