Delivering the goods in a war zone is risky business. In Afghanistan, it’s work bedeviled by bribes and kickbacks.

The British commander in the south of the country has just ordered a major investigation into how bribery has corrupted private contracting in Afghanistan, according to a report by The Independent newspaper in London. Major General Nick Carter wants construction and logistic contracts examined amid “mounting concerns” that bribery to ensure safe travel has created a “billion-dollar black hole for aid funds.”

The story quotes anonymous Afghans as saying that truckers must pay bribes of up to $1,500 to drive from Karachi to Camp Bastion, the main British military base in Afghanistan –- a fee that contractors call the “Taliban tax.” At least one source who knows the route told the Huffington Post Investigative Fund that bribes are routinely calculated into the cost of doing business: “Of course, they all pay. They all have to.”

Corruption in Afghanistan is rampant. The administration of President Hamid Karzai has been blamed for allowing, if not indirectly profiting from, the bribery. The presidents’ brothers and the son of Afghanistan’s defense minister have been accused of controlling private security firms that have been paying off the Taliban.