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US Justice Department
Bella was one of four ships whose fuel was confiscated
The US says it has taken control of four Iranian fuel shipments bound for Venezuela in the largest seizure of its kind ever.
About 1.1 million tons of fuel were confiscated “with the support of foreign partners”, according to the Department of Justice.
Washington said shipping would undermine U.S. sanctions.
The Iranian ambassador to Venezuela claimed that neither the ships nor their owners were Iranian.
A judge has issued a warrant for seizing the oil tankers of the four tankers after the U.S. filed a lawsuit last month.
In a statement on Friday, the U.S. Justice Department said it had “successfully carried out the” seizure “of a multimillion-dollar fuel shipment by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The IRGC is a branch of the Iranian army that has designated the US a foreign terrorist organization.
“This seized property is now in US custody,” the statement said, without indicating when or where the seizures took place.
The U.S. Department of Justice said that following the seizure, Iran’s navy made an unsuccessful bid to board an “unrelated ship” in an “apparent attempt to recover the seized petroleum.”
A senior U.S. official told the Associated Press that no military force was used in the seizures and that the ships themselves were not confiscated. Instead, the official said, the U.S. is threatening the owners, insurers and captains of ships with sanctions to force them to surrender the oil.
It is not clear at this time where the ships – the Bella, Bering, Pandi and Luna – are.
Iranian Ambassador to Venezuela Hojat Soltani described the seizure reports as “false propaganda”.
“This is another lie and act of psychological warfare carried out by the American propaganda machine,” he wrote on Twitter.
Tensions between Iran and the US have escalated since the unilateral withdrawal of Washington in 2018 from a landmark nuclear deal.
Washington has imposed heavy sanctions on both Iran and Venezuela to block oil exports. It wants to oust Venetian President Nicolás Maduro and change the behavior of Iran’s leaders.
Tensions between Iran and the US were blamed for attacks on two oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz in June last year – although Tehran denied US allegations that it was behind the explosions. Later that month, Iran fired a US drone into the area.
On Friday, a State Department spokeswoman said the proceeds of the seized fuel shipments “could now support the U.S. victim of the State Sponsored Terrorism Fund instead of those involved in terrorism.”
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