Farm hid 270 metres of buried pipe tapping a strategic crude pipeline in Muthanna

MUTHANNA — The National Security Service says it has broken up a network stealing crude from the strategic pipeline in Muthanna through two breaches and 270 metres of buried pipe running into a nearby farm, making about 500 million dinars a month.

Four people were arrested and vehicles seized after surveillance that ran from Baghdad to Muthanna, following intelligence from the service’s Basra and Muthanna directorates, the agency said. The farm sits beside the pipeline carrying crude from southern Iraq toward Haditha and on to the network serving the north. Cement trucks had been modified to carry the oil and hide what was being moved.

Corrosion at the breaches showed they had been open for a long time, a technical inspection found, though the agency did not say for how long. At 500 million dinars a month, about $330,000, the losses over any extended period would be substantial. Oil authorities have repaired and sealed both breaches, and the suspects’ confessions were recorded before they were referred to the courts.

It is the latest in a run of pipeline thefts. On Aug. 7 the service found a concealed line siphoning crude toward the Siniya refinery in Salah al-Din, hidden behind a car wash, in operations across three governorates that led to five arrests. It broke up an organised smuggling operation in Basra on May 26, and earlier that month the Energy Police raided a hidden site in Abu al-Khasib used to recycle and smuggle petroleum products. One person was killed near the Rumaila field in April 2025 when police confronted a group tapping pipelines, and a Karbala court jailed two people for 15 years in December 2024 for puncturing a pipeline and diverting crude.