“Iranian authorities confiscated a ship carrying 106,500 liters of smuggled fuel and arrested nine crew members,” the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.
The Chief Justice of Hormozgan Province said: with the order of the Qeshm Prosecutor and observing a ship carrying 106,500 liters of smuggled fuel, the officers of the naval base began to seize it.
Fuel prices in Iran are among the cheapest in the world due to large subsidies and currency devaluation, and it fights the illicit smuggling of fuel by land to neighboring countries and by sea to the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf.
Iran has often seized ships it says are used to smuggle oil into the Persian Gulf.
Two days ago, shortly after Tehran threatened to punish Athens, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) confirmed the seizure of two Greek ships (Prudent and River and Delta Poseidon) while sailing in Persian Gulf waters for violation of maritime law. In response to the seizure of an Iranian tanker near Greece last week and the seizure of its cargo.
According to the Tasnim news agency, quoting an informed source, the Revolutionary Guards threatened to seize 17 Greek tankers in the area.
Source: Lebanon Debate
