JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s coast guard (Bakamla) said on Tuesday it has seized an Iranian-flagged tanker suspected of involvement in the illegal transshipment of crude oil.
The vessel, MT Arman 114, was carrying 272,569 metric tons of light crude oil and was suspected of transferring the oil to another vessel without a permit, the coast guard said in a statement.
Bakamla said the vessel was captured after it was spotted conducting an oil transfer to another vessel, the Cameroon-flagged MT STinos. It did not say when that took place.
MT Arman was also suspected of violating other maritime regulations, such as turning of its automatic identification system, sailing without a flag and operating without port clearance, Bakamla said.
The vessel operators could not be immediately reached for comment.
(Reporting by Stefanno Sulaiman, Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Martin Petty)
