A commander at the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) naval forces has announced that the force has seized a foreign tanker in the Persian Gulf loaded with 1.45 million liters of smuggled diesel.






Round-the-clock observation of the Persian Gulf through state-of-the-art equipment led to the operation, Brigadier General Ramezan Zirrahi, the commander of the IRGC second naval region, told IRNA on Saturday.

Zirrahi noted that providing the security of the Persian Gulf is among the most important missions of the country’s naval forces.

The smuggled fuel was destined for one of the Persian Gulf littoral states, the commander said.

He went on to say that the crew members of the vessel were arrested.

According to Zirrahi, the IRGC naval forces clutched 1.6 million liters of bootleg fuel in the Persian Gulf region last year.

In 2022, IRGC confiscated a foreign vessel smuggling thousands of liters of fuel in the Persian Gulf region and arrested the entire crew members, a senior Iranian Judiciary official says

Mojtaba Ghahramani, head of the Justice Department of Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan, said on Saturday that the IRGC Navy forces had seized the foreign vessel carrying 220,000 liters of smuggled fuel in Parsian County, south of Hormozgan.

“During the inspection of this vessel, more than 220,000 liters of smuggled fuel were seized and 11 foreign crew members were detained,” said Ghahramani, adding that the detainees will remain in custody during the investigation process and the ensuing legal procedure.

By IRNA