Iran seizes UAE flagged tanker in Strait of Hormuz over diesel smuggling


Devdiscourse News Desk | Tehran | Updated: 16-09-2019 17:42 IST | Created: 16-09-2019 16:28 IST
Iran seizes UAE flagged tanker in Strait of Hormuz over diesel smuggling
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Iran has claimed that it has seized a UAE flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's semi-official Students News agency ISNA reported on Monday.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps have arrested the vessel carrying the flag of the United Arab Emirates and its 11 crew on diesel smuggling charges.

According to reports, the ship was carrying 250,000 liters of smuggled diesel to UAE.

"It was detained near Iran's Greater Tunb island in the Persian Gulf...the crew have been handed over to legal authorities in the southern Hormozgan province," ISNA said, without elaborating on the nationalities of the crewmen.

The country also detained a small smuggler vessel in the month of July. This vessel was initially reported as an oil tanker with a carrying capacity of one million barrels of fuel.

But later Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif clarified that the detained entity was not an oil tanker but a small smuggler vessel with a carrying capacity of 'one million liters of oil, NOT one million barrels of oil' and such smuggling occurs on a daily basis.

The initial media reports also suggested that the seized vessel belonged to the United Kingdom but the UK, however, denied the reports.

The United States expressed 'suspicions' that Iran might have detained a 'UAE tanker' Riah which went missing while passing through the Strait of Hormuz. But later the UAE also denied the operation or ownership of the tanker and even said the tanker was not carrying any UAE personnel.

Further details are awaited.

This is a developing story.

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