tehran, iran
Mojtaba Ghahrami, chief decide of the southern province of Hormozgan, stated two vessels carrying 210,000 liters of “smuggled gasoline” have been seized in Qeshm waters, state media reported.
He stated the Iranian navy seized the 2 vessels after figuring out them and detained the 14 individuals on board.
As quickly because the “smugglers” discovered the Iranian naval officer, they started “cleansing up the crime scene and dumping a number of the gasoline into the ocean to keep away from prosecution,” Fars News Agency reported.
Ghahrami stated the smugglers have been “planning to switch the gasoline to some Persian Gulf international locations,” with out naming the international locations.
He famous that combating gasoline smuggling is excessive on the Iranian judiciary’s precedence checklist.
It just isn’t clear which nation the vessel belonged to, nor has the nationality of the vessel in judicial custody been disclosed.
In current years, Iran’s navy has seized foreign-flagged vessels in Persian Gulf waters on suspicion of gasoline smuggling and violating maritime laws.
Thursday’s incident got here a day after Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Navy seized two ships south of Abu Musa Island within the Persian Gulf.
The vessels are suspected of smuggling 4.5 million liters of gasoline, the IRGC’s public relations division stated in a press release.
In September, the Revolutionary Guards seized two oil tankers flying the flags of Panama and Tanzania on suspicion of smuggling 1.5 million liters of gasoline within the Persian Gulf.
In July, the Bahamian-registered oil tanker Richmond Voyager was seized after colliding with an Iranian vessel within the Sea of Oman in Hormozgan province.
The incident comes lower than two months after the Revolutionary Guards seized a Panamanian-flagged tanker within the Strait of Hormuz, calling it a “violation”.
These incidents come amid heightened tensions between Iran and the United States, with their navies clashing in Persian waters.
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