FEATURE-Smuggling to Iran rife in dangerous Gulf waters

By Lin Noueihed

KHASAB, Oman, May 12 (Reuters) - Smugglers pile boxes high on their speedboats, covering them with tarpaulin before zipping off into the sunset on the short but dangerous journey across the strategic Strait of Hormuz from Oman to Iran.

They return in the early morning, their empty fibreglass boats ready to pick up more cargo at the small Gulf port of Khasab, in Oman's isolated northern peninsula of Musandam.

Trade with Iran is as ancient as the settlements overlooking the Strait of Hormuz, gateway for a third of the world's oil shipments. In 2005, Iran's police chief said some $6 billion worth of goods such as computer parts, tea or cigarettes were smuggled into the country each year from the Gulf.

Now, tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic have added new dangers to the age-old journey across the Strait of Hormuz.

The arrival of a second U.S. aircraft carrier in the Gulf in April raised fears that Washington was planning to strike Iran.

The U.S. military dismissed this idea but accuses Tehran of supporting Iraqi militias and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Washington also says Iran is seeking nuclear weapons under cover of an energy programme though Tehran rejects the charges.

The tension bubbles through the Gulf: this year, four encounters between patrolling U.S. ships and small boats, some described as Iranian by the Pentagon, exposed new risks of confrontation in the busy sea lanes.

But despite the dangers, smugglers on the Khasab route -- used to circumventing Iranian import controls, high duties and bureaucracy at overstretched ports -- say the money is too good to resist, especially given poor job prospects in Iran.