Iran issues jail sentences, fines for foreign crews of fuel smuggling ships
Iran Press TV
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 6:18 PM
A court in the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan has issued jail sentences and fines to crews of two foreign tankers seized in the Persian Gulf because of smuggling Iranian fuel supplies.
Head of the Iranian Judiciary's local branch in Hormozgan Mojtaba Ghahramani said on Tuesday that a total of 34 individuals who formed the crew teams of two foreign-flagged ships seized recently near the Iranian island of Bu Musa had been tried in the fuel smuggling case.
Ghahramani said the captain and his two deputies in a first ship, which had been carrying more than 4.25 million liters of smuggled fuel when it was seized, were sentenced to five years in prison and a collective fine payment of 4.3 trillion rials ($5.37 million).
He said the captain and two deputies of a second tanker, which was smuggling more than 1.7 million liters of fuel, received the same jail sentences and were ordered to pay over 2.375 trillion rials ($3 million) in fines.
The official said that the tankers will not be released until the fines are paid.
Iran has seen a rise in confiscation of ships smuggling fuel in recent years amid ultra-cheap prices of gasoline and diesel in the country that have encouraged smugglers to carry shipments to Arab states in the Persian Gulf.
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said on Tuesday that it had seized two Tanzanian-flagged vessels carrying 1.5 million liters of smuggled diesel fuel earlier in the day in the Persian Gulf.
The semi-official Fars news agency said that the vessels, identified as Sea Ranger and Salama, had 25 foreign crew members.
On March 31, the IRGC confiscated two ships, identified as Star 1 and Vintage, in the middle parts of the Persian Gulf waterway, saying they were carrying some 3 million liters of diesel fuel when they were seized.
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