Armed Iranian troops on Thursday seized a tanker in the Gulf of Oman that was at the center of an international legal dispute between Washington and Tehran for transporting sanctioned Iranian oil.
The vessel, once known as the Suez Rajan, was at the center of an illicit multimillion-dollar shipment of crude oil last year orchestrated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. A U.S. court eventually ordered Greek tanker operator Empire Navigation to pay a $2.4 million fine and hand over almost 1 million barrels of oil the ship was carrying.
On Thursday, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations received reports that the tanker, now known as the St. Nikolas, was boarded by as many as five armed people wearing black uniforms and masks.
“Vessel has altered course toward Iranian territorial waters. Contact with the vessel has been lost,” the UKMTO reported.
Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency acknowledged the seizure of the oil tanker and said it came as a result of a court order but didn’t elaborate on the incident.
Thursday’s seizure comes after weeks of attack on commercial shipping in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The actions prompted the Pentagon to develop Operation Prosperity Guardian, an international naval coalition to protect commercial traffic in the region.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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