US Navy seized Iranian petroleum products and hundreds of missiles from vessels in Arabian Sea

The Justice Department on Tuesday announced the forfeiture of two large caches of Iranian arms.

US Navy seized Iranian petroleum products and hundreds of missiles from vessels in Arabian Sea

CNN-Wed December 8, 2021

(CNN)The US Navy seized hundreds of Iranian missiles and 1.1 million barrels of Iranian petroleum products from vessels in the Arabian Sea in what became the US government’s “largest-ever forfeiture of fuel and weapons shipments from Iran,” according to a release from the Justice Department.

The weapons, the department said in the Tuesday release, were seized by the US during “routine maritime security operations.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps organized the shipments of weapons, which were bound for Houthi militias in Yemen, the Justice Department said. The petroleum was taken from “four foreign-flagged tankers in or around the Arabian Sea while en route to Venezuela,” according to the release.

US Navy Central Command seized the weapons from two “flagless vessels” in the Arabian Sea on two occasions: November 25, 2019, and February 9, 2020.

“These successful forfeiture actions are a product of the U.S. government’s coordinated efforts to enforce U.S. sanctions against the IRGC and the Iranian regime,” the release stated.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division added that “the actions of the United States in these two cases strike a resounding blow to the Government of Iran and to the criminal networks supporting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/08/politics/iranian-missiles-and-petroleum-seized-forfeited/index.html