Tehran (HRNW) Iran’ Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has seized a ship suspected of fuel smuggling and arrested 16 Malaysian crew members, state media reported late on Monday.

The website of IRIB state television said the IRGC confiscated 1.3 million litres of “smuggled fuel” from the unnamed vessel 15 nautical miles from Abu Musa island.

“The ship’s 16 crew who are of Malaysian nationality were arrested,” the IRGC’s naval commander for the region, Brigadier General Ali Ozmayi, was quoted as saying.

Abu Musa is one of three islands in the southern Gulf that are under Iranian control but claimed by the United Arab Emirates.