Iran has detained a product tanker and its crew of 14 seafarers in a smuggling case.
Brigadier General Heydar Honarian Mojarrad, a commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Bushehr province, told Mehr News Agency that the unnamed ship was carrying 2m litres of contraband fuel.
The tanker was flying a flag from a country in Oceania, Mojarrad added, without specifying.
The seizure was made off Bushehr early last Sunday after a court order was issued, he said, and the fuel is to be handed over to the National Iranian Oil Refining & Distribution Co as per the order.
Iran International reported Mojarrad saying the tanker was intercepted 60 miles (97 km) off the coast.
The 14 crew members on board come from two Asian nations.
The brigadier general said the vessel had been under surveillance since it loaded a fuel cargo. Its loading and discharge ports were not specified, however.
Action against smuggling on smaller tankers is a regular occurrence in Iran, where fuel prices are low.
In December, the navy seized two tankers.
The unidentified vessels, which Iran also accused of smuggling, were carrying 4.5m litres of fuel in total when they were arrested near Abu Musa, an island halfway between Iran and Dubai.
Both vessels, their cargo and 34 non-Iranian seafarers employed on them were placed under detention.
Earlier in January, Iran released the single Greek seafarer on board a suezmax that its forces seized in the open sea the week before.
The cadet officer, the youngest crew member of the 158,600-dwt St Nikolas (ex-Suez Rajan, built 2011), was put on a flight to Greece, escorted by the Greek ambassador to Iran, according to the ship’s owner, Empire Navigation.
Eighteen Filipino seafarers remain in Iranian custody on board the vessel at Bandar Abbas.
Armed Iranian forces boarded the St Nikolas by helicopter early on 11 January as it was underway off Oman. The move was in reprisal for Empire’s cooperation with US action last year to seize Iranian oil the ship was carrying.
