For Karachi's Water Mafia, Stolen H₂O Is A 'Lucrative Business'
In Pakistan's port city, gangs siphon off water from government pipes and resell it to residents. Surprisingly, the municipal water board is now partnering with the mafia to distribute it.
In Korangi, a slum neighborhood of Karachi, a sprawling port city of some 16 million people in Pakistan, there's no running water.
So how do people get the water they need to drink, to cook, to wash up and to clean their homes?
Residents have to call men like Mohammad Zubair, a driver who belongs to a group of water handlers known as the "water tanker mafia." For a price, drivers will deliver clean water, which is pricey, or polluted water, which is cheaper.
Zubair's tankers can't reach into the narrow alleyways deep in Karachi's slums. So residents order water by
