The US Department of Justice announced on August 14, 2020, that it had seized the petroleum-product cargo of four oil tankers pursuant to a seizure order issued by the US District Court for the District of Columbia, following an in rem forfeiture complaint filed on July 2, 2020. The cargo, approximately 1.116 million barrels of petroleum, is the largest seizure of fuel shipments from Iran ever executed by the US government. According to the DOJ, the Pandi, the Luna, the Bering and the Bella were carrying petroleum belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an entity designated by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury in 2017 pursuant to Executive Order 13224, and added to the US State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list in 2019.
August 14, 2020