Iran Seizes Foreign Oil Tanker With 18 Crew Members in Sea of Oman

Jask: Iranian judicial authorities have seized a foreign oil tanker and detained its 18 crew members in the Sea of Oman. Reports in Iranian media indicated that the ship, seized on December 12, was carrying approximately 6 million liters of smuggled fuel. According to Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, the tanker was impounded after being intercepted and inspected off the port city of Jask, within Iranian-controlled waters. The operation was carried out by provincial judiciary officials in southern Hormozgan Province. Mojtaba Ghahremani, head of the provincial judiciary in Hormozgan, stated that the tanker ignored orders to stop and attempted to flee, further implicating the crew in the organized transportation of smuggled fuel. Ghahremani also mentioned that the seized tanker lacked proper navigational and cargo documents and had its radar turned off. Additionally, he accused the crew of "deliberately destroying the ship's equipment at the time of the seizure." The crew, comprising individuals from South Asi an nations, including India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, is currently being questioned, as reported by Fars, another semiofficial news agency. While the nationality of the vessel remains undisclosed, this incident is not isolated. Tehran has a history of detaining ships in the Persian Gulf, a crucial route for global fuel transportation. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has frequently accused confiscated tankers of fuel smuggling, although these claims often lack substantiation. This latest seizure by Iran comes on the heels of the United States seizing a Tehran-linked tanker off Venezuela's coast earlier this week. The vessel had been under US Treasury Department sanctions since 2022 for allegedly participating in a network led by Ukrainian national Viktor Artemov, which was purportedly involved in smuggling Iranian oil.