Iran continues naval piracy in the Persian Gulf – Details

Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy forces seized yesterday a foreign ship carrying 200,000 liters of fuel in the northern Persian Gulf.

A ship carrying smuggled fuel was seized in the Gulf, and eight crew members were arrested and handed over to judicial authorities in the southern Iranian port of Bushehr for investigation, Gholam Hosseini, head of public relations for the Second Marine Region of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, was quoted by the semi-official Fars News Agency as saying.

“Five boats that were planning to supply this foreign ship with fuel were searched, and the documents of these boats were confiscated for further investigation”, the official said.

The Revolutionary Guard official did not specify the identities and nationalities of the arrested individuals or the flag that the foreign ship was flying.

On April 9, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps stopped a ship in the Gulf flying a Tanzanian flag under the pretext of smuggling fuel.

In recent weeks, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps announced it had seized two ships off the Iranian coast on the Gulf and in the neighboring Gulf of Oman carrying 350,000 liters of fuel smuggled from Iran, bringing the total amount of fuel exported over the past week to 650,000 liters.

Last November, Iranian authorities announced the arrest of a foreign boat carrying 150,000 liters of smuggled fuel oil, and the detention of its 11 foreign crew members, without disclosing any details.