The United States has sold more than a million barrels of Iranian fuel seized under its sanctions program last year, a Department of Justice official said, as another ship with intercepted Iranian crude oil sails to a US port.
The seizures are part of Washington's tough economic sanctions on Tehran imposed over its nuclear program and the US designation of a number of Iranian groups as terrorists.
In a new approach last year, the administration of former US President Donald Trump used civil forfeiture procedures to seize some 1.2 million barrels of gasoline it said were being sent from Iran to Venezuela aboard four tankers.
Department of Justice spokesman Marc Raimondi told Reuters this week that the sale of the cargoes had been completed, adding that the government was "still working out the final expenses."
"The petroleum has been seized, and an interlocutory sale has preserved the cash value of the petroleum, which is now held by the US Marshals Service" he said. The value of the gasoline was not known, but was likely worth tens of millions of dollars based on benchmark European gasoline prices.
Raimondi said the department still needs the US District Court in Washington, DC, to enter an order of forfeiture "and then the funds will be transferred to the US Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund."
Last week, the United States filed a lawsuit to seize another cargo, this one of crude oil it says came from Iran -rather than Iraq, as stated on the bill of lading - contravening US terrorism regulations.
That cargo, loaded onto the Liberian-flagged Achilleas tanker, last reported its position in Caribbean waters. The US Gulf port of Galveston was its destination with a scheduled arrival on Feb. 15, Refinitiv ship tracking data showed on Wednesday.
