At the Mercy of the Water MafiaPumping wells in the dark of night, criminal bosses rule the liquid economy in one of the world's busiest cities. Can anyone stop them? BY AMAN SETHI - Foreing Policy A quarter of Delhi’s households live without a piped-water connection; most of the rest receive water for only a few hours each day. So residents have come to rely on private truck owners—the most visible strands of a dispersed web of city councilors, farmers, real estate agents, and fixers who source millions of gallons of water each day from illicit boreholes, as well as the city’s leaky pipe network, and sell the liquid for profit.