Iran says boat seized in Strait of Hormuz, Filipinos arrested

Iran arrested 12 Filipino crew members on Saturday after arresting a suspected fuel smuggling ring on the Hormud Channel.

The main television anchored images of orange and white tugboats in the port of Bandar Abbas, with at least three guards on board.

“The coast guard has successfully captured foreign vessels in the Straits of Hormuz,” said Major General Hosein Dehaki, the coast guard of the southern coastal Hormozgan.

The boat, known to carry smuggled fuel, was boarded by 12 Filipino crew members and all were arrested, he told television stations.

Dehaki said the group was suspected of operating a fuel smuggling ring and seized shipments were blocked near Sirik County in the Hormuz Strait.

The US seizure occurred under tensions in the Gulf Coast after the unilateral withdrawal of Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions against Iran's nuclear program.

The escalation occupied one-third of the world's offshore oil, with mysterious attacks by ships, drones being knocked down, and tankers seized from the Hormud Strait.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards detained a "foreign tanker" in the Gulf Sea on July 14 to smuggle smuggled goods.

"The 2 million liters capacity and 12 foreign crews were on board to fly the smuggled fuel received from Iranian boats to foreign vessels," the guard said.

Maritime tracking service TankerTrackers reported that the automatic identification system stopped transmitting signals after the Panama Island flag MT Riah, which was used in the strait to fuel other vessels, crossed into the Iranian sea.

In the most prominent seizure, the guards broke the “Marine Rules” for the Stena Impero tanker on a British international scale on the July 19th Strait of Hormuz.

Iran also had seven foreign crews seized another ship on board on July 31 as fuel smuggling, but did not reveal the identity of the ship or its nationality.