Iran has seized an oil tanker carrying six million litres of smuggled diesel in the Gulf of Oman.
The Iranian news agency Fars reported the incident late on Friday night, stating that the vessel had eighteen crew members from India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh on board.
A local official told the state media that the interception occurred off the coast of the Gulf of Oman, where the tanker was found to be illegally transporting fuel.
The Iranian military regularly detains ships in the region suspected of smuggling fuel, benefiting from Iran’s low fuel prices. In a similar incident, another tanker was seized last November.
The seizure comes amid mounting geopolitical tensions. On Wednesday, the United States detained an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
The White House claimed the detained vessel was part of a shadow fleet supplying oil to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, further straining relations between the two nations.
