Published on 6/16/2026
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Last update: 23:46 (Mecca time)
Iraqi Communications Minister Mustafa Jabbar Sanad said on Tuesday that Iraq loses 200 billion dinars ($152.6 million) annually as a result of illegal Internet billing operations. The statement came during the announcement of the dismantling of an organized network to redirect and sell the Internet to thousands of residential units in Iraq.
Minister Sanad stated in a blog post on her official Facebook account that the illegal Internet service provides more than 1.5 million and a half users in Iraq.
The Iraqi Minister of Communications pledged that if his ministry recovers the money wasted due to partially or completely smuggled Internet bills, he will use it to provide free Internet services to some service institutions and entertainment venues, to reduce the prices of current subscriptions, and to increase Internet speed by 20% for “optical cable and wireless” networks during the year 2027.
Dismantle the network
Minister Mustafa Sanad stated that his ministry, in coordination and cooperation with the National Security Service, dismantled an organized network of companies involved in redirecting and selling Internet capacity allocated for commercial and non-home purposes, and marketing it to citizens as home subscriptions through unofficial bills, affecting more than 10,000 housing units.
However, the Iraqi minister warned that the dismantling process affected “only one group out of dozens of monitored networks that are being dismantled successively,” explaining that some of the violating companies “suddenly cut off service to citizens to hide the signs of their violation and without any official fire orders from the ministry.”
The Iraqi official said in a previous blog post on May 26 that the Internet subscriptions for more than 1.5 million Internet subscribers who are not officially registered with the state “does not collect any fees or taxes from them,” and “some of them are prepared by smugglers without their knowledge, some of them are sold the subscription integrated or a hub (low quality), and some of them are sold integrated satellite Internet (Starlink, for example), where dollars go in the air to Elon Musk without benefit to the state.”
