Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has seized
a tanker near the Strait of Hormuz carrying smuggled fuel. Although there have
been a number of seizures by the IRGC in recent months as smugglers exploit the
cheapness of subsidized fuel in Iran compared with the price in Iraq and other
central Asian countries, this time the seizure was of a larger than usual volume.
The vessel was carrying a near-record 3m gallons of diesel, according to
Mojtaba Qahremani, the judiciary chief for the province of Hormozgan.
The collapse of the value of the Iranian rial over the
past four years has widened the opportunity for profit.
The foreign-flagged tanker’s captain and crew are being
held pending prosecution, Qahremani told the IRGC-affiliated outlet Tasnim
News.
Most fuel smuggling occurs via tanker trucks and small
vehicles crossing Iran’s land borders, but a portion travels by maritime routes
aboard small coastal product tankers, and the IRGC periodically announces an
interdiction.
Ironically, the IRGC itself is an active player in energy
smuggling. According to the US Treasury, it uses a network of shell companies
and a system of ship-to-ship transfers in order to evade US sanctions on
Iranian energy exports.
