Iran Guards seize foreign ship in Gulf for smuggling diesel

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have seized a foreign vessel in the Gulf for allegedly smuggling 757,000 litres of diesel out of the country, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.

The unnamed vessel’s seven crew members, who are foreign nationals, have been handed over to legal authorities, IRNA reported without elaborating on the nationalities of the ship or its crew.

Iran, which has some of the world’s cheapest fuel prices due to heavy subsidies and the plunge in value of its national currency, has been fighting rampant fuel smuggling by land to neighbouring countries and by sea to Gulf Arab states.

The Guards have detained several ships in the past few months for smuggling fuel in the Gulf.

(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by David Holmes)