ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iran has seized an oil tanker in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, confiscating cargo worth more than $5 million and detaining 16 non-Iranian crew members “with a criminal warrant issued,” the country's judiciary said Friday.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Wednesday announced that its naval forces seized "an illegal tanker in the waters of the Persian Gulf" and captured the vessel's crew.

As part of the judiciary’s efforts to combat fuel smuggling, Iran’s IRGC navy forces “succeeded in seizing a foreign tanker carrying approximately 4 million liters of smuggled fuel in the blue waters of the Persian Gulf and near Qeshm Island,” Hormozgan Province Chief Justice Mojtaba Ghahremani said on Friday, the judiciary’s Mizan news outlet reported.

In concordance with the Islamic Republic's legal system, “this tanker and its cargo, worth approximately 700 billion Tomans [around $5.22 million], will be confiscated in favor of the government,” he added.

Details regarding the ownership of the vessel and under which flag it sailed remain unknown.

Ghahremani further warned that the waters of the Persian Gulf and Iran’s coasts and islands would not be safe for profiteers and smugglers, vowing relentless action against them on land and at sea.

Iran has previously threatened that it could block the Strait of Hormuz in response to international sanctions, with any prospective closure of what is one of the world’s most important shipping routes and its most vital oil transit chokepoint posing a catastrophic risk for the global economy

Regarding the 16 foreign nationals detained, Ghahremani said the IRGC “handed them over to judicial authorities,” adding that they are being held in custody “with a criminal warrant issued.”

In October, Iran’s top IRGC naval commander warned that Tehran could act to restrict oil shipments through the strait following new US sanctions targeting its energy exports, saying it will defend the country’s interests in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman.

In November, the IRGC Navy confirmed it had seized the cargo of the Talara oil tanker off Iran’s southern Makran coast. The vessel, en route to Singapore, was seized under a judicial order, a move strongly condemned by the US, which described it as an “illegal boarding.”