Slightly more than a year after a United Nations inquiry discovered a staggering level of graft by officials and corporations worldwide in buying cheap oil and selling goods to Iraq experts warn the great majority of alleged perpetrators are escaping scot-free.

An 18-month inquiry by Paul Volcker, former Fed chairman, found that more than 2,000 companies, including some of the world’s most reputable blue chips, paid kickbacks to get a piece of the market to sell civilian goods to Iraq, providing the regime of Saddam Hussein with $1.8bn in illicit income.