Tehran: Two weeks after the Iranian tanker detention in Gibraltar, Tehran on Thursday alleged that the seizure of a foreign oil tanker took place over oil smuggling with 12 crew members on board.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized the Panamanian-flagged oil tanker MT Riah from south of Iran's Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran seizes foreign oil tanker in the Persian Gulf According to data listed on tracking site Maritime Traffic, the oil tanker MT Riah stopped transmitting its location overnight on Sunday near Qeshm Island where Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has its base.Iran's state television said that the tanker was intercepted on Sunday and was involved in smuggling some 1 million litres of fuel from Iranian smugglers to foreign customers.Earlier on July 4, British Royal Marines had seized an Iranian supertanker in Gibraltar over breaching EU sanctions by carrying oil to Syria.The Iranian move came amid the heightened tensions between Iran and the US after President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of Iran's nuclear deal with world powers last year and imposed sanctions on Tehran.
Read also: Six months on, Chinese-Australian writer still detained by Beijing
