Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have detained two ships in the Arabian Gulf accused of carrying more than a million litres of smuggled fuel, state media reported on Thursday.
Fifteen foreign crew members were referred to judicial authorities for legal proceedings, Tasnim news agency said.
"These vessels had been smuggling fuel in a network over the past months, which were identified and seized through monitoring, interception and intelligence work by the IRGC Navy fighters," Fars news agency said.
Iran, which has some of the world's lowest fuel prices due to heavy subsidies and the plunge in the value of its national currency, has been fighting rampant fuel smuggling by land to neighbouring countries and by sea to the region.
In December, the IRGC also seized a ship carrying four million litres of smuggled fuel in the Arabian Gulf. It had 16 non-Iranian crew members on board and was about to leave Iran's territorial waters.
In the same month, a foreign tanker allegedly carrying six million litres of smuggled diesel was seized in the Gulf of Oman. Eighteen crew members from India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh had been on board.
A month earlier, Iran also seized a ship flying the flag of Eswatini and carrying "smuggled fuel" in the Strait of Hormuz, a major chokepoint for oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
The IRGC, the ideological arm of the Iranian military, also seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf in November. The company managing the vessel later said Iran had released the tanker and that its 21 crew members were safe.
The Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had earlier said there was “no rationality” in fuel prices in Iran because of the subsidies.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US-based think tank, had said in a 2024 report that Iran “faces a severe energy crisis due to decades of mismanagement, excessive subsidies, corruption and international sanctions”.
