Iranian forces on Wednesday seized a foreign oil tanker near the Iranian island of Qeshm in the Persian Gulf, which contained about four million litres of "smuggled fuel".
According to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the fleeing vessel had been intercepted just before it could exit Tehran's territorial waters, as per a local news agency report.
"The IRGC naval forces detected suspicious activity on a large fuel tanker. Intelligence investigations revealed that the tanker had received a cargo of over 4 million litres of smuggled fuel from smaller vessels," explained Brigadier General Abbas Gholamshahi, Commander of the IRGC's First Naval District in the Persian Gulf, to local media.
"[The crew of the seized vessel were] planning to offload it onto larger ships outside the Persian Gulf," he added.
The IRGC has not yet revealed the vessel's name, but has mentioned that there were 16 crew members onboard.
However, this is not the first such seizure made by Iran.
Earlier this month, Iranian forces reportedly detained 18 crew members of a foreign oil tanker that had been carrying 6 million litres of smuggled fuel.
According to the authorities, the tanker—seized near the Gulf of Oman on December 12—had committed multiple violations, including "ignoring stop orders, attempting to flee, (and) lacking navigation and cargo documentation", as per a Reuters report.
According to Iranian media reports citing the Hormozgan province judiciary, the crew members included people from India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.
Iran has some of the world's lowest fuel prices, owing to heavy subsidies and the Iranian rial hitting an all-time low of 1.312 million rials to the US dollar about a week ago.
As a result, the IRGC tanker seizure on Wednesday is only the latest attempt in Tehran's fight against foreign actors smuggling fuel to neighbouring countries and Gulf Arab states via land and sea routes.
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