TEHRAN – Iran has detained a foreign oil tanker accused of carrying contraband fuel in the Sea of Oman.

The seizure is part of intelligence and monitoring work to track down suspicious fuel smuggling activities along the country’s sea borders, said Mojtaba Qahremani, the director general of the Justice Department of southern Hormozgan province.

“Having received a judicial permit, law enforcers inspected a foreign oil tanker in waters within the Iranian territory in the west of the Jask port city. As the vessel had committed numerous maritime violations and lacked enough documents on its cargo, the law enforcers seized it on charges of carrying some 6 million liters of smuggled fuel,” said the official. 

Accordingly, a legal case was filed with the local Revolution and Public Prosecutor’s Office, and legal proceedings are underway to review the accusations, added the official. 18 suspects, including the captain and crew of the foreign oil tanker, are currently in Iranian custody to complete investigations.

Recently, Iran detained another vessel carrying smuggled fuel in the Persian Gulf. A commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said an Eswatini(Swaziland)-flagged vessel carrying 350,000 liters of contraband fuel had been detained in the Persian Gulf waters.

“In line with protecting and safeguarding the sea borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially in the Persian Gulf, ... a Swaziland-flagged ship carrying smuggled fuel (gas oil) was seized,” said General Heydar Mojarad, an IRGC naval commander.

He added some 13 crewmembers, one of them from a neighboring country and some from India, were on the vessel when it was intercepted.

In mid-November, the IRGC’s naval forces seized a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker in the southern coastal region of Sistan and Balouchestan after receiving a judicial order. The vessel, named Talara, was heading through the Strait of Hormuz with “Iranian petrochemical products… illegally transported towards Singapore,” the IRGC said at the time. The company managing the tanker confirmed later that Iran had released the tanker and its 21 crew members were all safe.

In another related development, Iran recently busted a fuel theft network in Hormozgan Province.

Iran continues to grapple with widespread fuel smuggling, both overland and through maritime routes, a problem fueled by the country’s heavily subsidized fuel prices—among the lowest in the world. The sharp price gap between Iran and neighboring countries has long encouraged large-scale illegal fuel transfers.

In response, Iranian authorities, in coordination with the Armed Forces, have intensified efforts to intercept smugglers by land and sea. Official figures indicate that an estimated 25 million liters of fuel products, including gasoline and diesel, were smuggled out of Iran each day in 2024.