Ellick on Pakistan Bootlegging

Bootlegging is big business in Pakistan, where alcoholic products have been illegal since the 1970s. But OPC board member Adam Ellick, a New York Times video/print reporter, wrote in a dispatch from Peshawar that bootleggers are making big money while hiding “from the police, who want his money; the Taliban, who want his head; and his family, who would disown him.”

Ellick continues in his dispatch published April 13 under a three-column head, “The fancy prices government officials and feudal landlords are willing to pay for their favorite brand, Johnny Walker Black Label, create profits that are handsome by Pakistani standards – $4,000 a year or about seven times the average Pakistani salary. Bootleggers who operate larger and more dangerous networks earn the steepest profits. One man, who claims to be the biggest dealer in Peshawar, says he has 10 employees and nets as much as $14,000 a night serving the so-called respectable people.”