US seizes millions of dollars worth of Iranian oil

 

The United States has seized four Iranian naval oil tankers bound for the Latin American country of Venezuela. This is the biggest operation of its kind. The U.S. Department of Justice says about 1.1 million barrels of oil have been seized. The United States has said the oil shipments violated US sanctions. The Iranian ambassador to Venezuela says neither the ships nor their owners were Iranian.

The court issued a warrant for the seizure of the oil tankers after an application was filed in a US court last month. The U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement Friday that it had "successfully seized millions of dollars worth of Iranian Revolutionary Guards oil shipments."  The Revolutionary Guards in Iran are part of the Iranian military that the United States calls terrorists.  "The seized items are now US property," the statement said. However, the statement did not say when or where the operation took place.  The U.S. Department of Justice says that after the operation, the Iranian navy tried to seize an unmanned ship, apparently in an attempt to release the seized goods.  A senior US official told the Associated Press that no soldiers were involved in the operation and that the ships had not been seized, only the cargo had been seized. The official said the United States forced ship owners, insurers, and captains to hand over the cargo to the United States. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post. The Iranian ambassador to Venezuela, Hojat Sultani, called the reports false.M"This is another lie and another tactic of the psychological warfare being spread by the US propaganda machine," he wrote on Twitter. Tensions between the two countries have risen since the US unilaterally pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 Is.  The United States has imposed sanctions on both Venezuela and Iran to prevent oil imports. The United States wants Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to step down and change the position of the Iranian rulers. Two oil tankers exploded in the Strait of Hormuz in June last year due to tensions between the United States and Iran. Iran has denied US allegations that it carried out the bombings. The same month, Iran shot down a US drone. On Friday, a State Department spokesman said the sale of Iranian oil would now benefit American citizens who are "victims of Iranian state terrorism and not go to those who are involved in terrorism."