Heydar Henryan Mojarad, commander of the IRGC Navy’s Second District, announced that this military force had seized a ship flying the flag of Eswatini in the Persian Gulf and detained its thirteen crew members.
On Sunday, November 30, Henryan Mojarad told Iran’s state-run television that the vessel was seized for “smuggling 350,000 liters of gas oil (diesel) from Iran.”
The IRGC commander added that the ship had been seized “under a judicial order” and transferred to the shores of Bushehr, and its fuel “is being offloaded and handed over to the Bushehr Oil Products Refining and Distribution Company.”
He also stated that the detained crew members were “from India and one neighboring country.”
Indonesia To Auction Seized Iranian Oil Tanker Carrying 1.2 Million Barrels of Crude Oil
This is not the first time the IRGC has seized ships in the Persian Gulf or the Gulf of Oman under the accusation of “fuel smuggling.”
On November 29, Ali Salami-zadeh, the prosecutor of Kish Island, announced the seizure of two vessels “carrying 80,000 liters of smuggled fuel” in the Persian Gulf waters.
In March, the IRGC Navy announced that two foreign tankers named “Star 1” and “Winteg” had been seized in the Persian Gulf.
In its statement at the time, the IRGC described these tankers as “fuel-smuggling kingpins” and added that the vessels, which had a total of twenty-five crew members, “were carrying more than three million liters of smuggled diesel fuel.”
“Fuel smuggling” used as justification for raising gasoline prices
Officials of Iran’s regime typically cite “fuel smuggling” as one of the main justifications for raising domestic fuel prices.
Masoud Pezeshkian, president of Iran’s regime, stated in January 2025 that twenty to thirty million liters of gasoline are smuggled daily in Iran and described it as a “catastrophe.”
Pezeshkian said: “This volume of smuggling from a supply chain whose production and distribution are in our own hands is absolutely unacceptable.”
Iran’s Regime and Venezuela Are the Largest Users of Shadow-Fleet Oil Tankers
However, such large-scale fuel smuggling is impossible without the involvement of the IRGC. The IRGC controls all imports and exports through unofficial ports and airports.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran’s regime, said in July 2011 at a conference on combating smuggling that the profits from smuggling in Iran “would tempt all first-class smugglers in the world, let alone our own smuggler brothers.”
His remark was a pointed reference to the role of security and military institutions—especially the IRGC—in organized smuggling in Iran.
