The U.S. Navy seized another tanker carrying Iranian oil in the Indian Ocean, the Pentagon announced on Thursday, as Iranian officials claimed the country has the first deposits from tolls collected from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz in apparent defiance of the U.S. blockade.
A container ship is seen in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Qeshm Island, Iran.
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In a statement issued on X, the Defense Department said it had seized stateless vessel M/T Majestic X, which was “transporting oil from Iran, in the Indian Ocean.”
The interdiction was carried out by the U.S. military’s Indo-Pacific Command and the statement added that the military will continue to target “vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate.”
The deputy speaker of Iran’s parliament, Hamidreza Haji Babaei, told the semi-official Tasnim News Agency that the first tranche of tolls collected from ships passing the Strait of Hormuz have been deposited into the Iranian central bank’s account, according to a BBC translation.
Tasnim cited another legislator who claimed he has also heard the same from “reliable sources” and added that the fees vary from ship to ship, depending on their type, size and cargo.
The lawmaker also claimed all collected fees are being deposited into a single account and decisions on how they are spent will be made later.
It’s unclear how these tolls were collected, but the Financial Times earlier reported that Iran was demanding the payments be made in cryptocurrencies.
Last week, Trump announced the U.S. Navy would blockade Iranian ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. In his post, the president mentioned the U.S. blockade also applied to any ships that agreed to pay a toll to Iran. “I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.”
Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported that Iran will demand cryptocurrency payments from all oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz. The report cited a spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, who said the toll charged will be $1 per barrel of oil. A few weeks before the report was published, the Iranian Embassy in India’s official X account denied reports that it had charged a $2 million fee for a vessel that passed through the strait.
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