US earns tens of million Dollars selling seized Iranian oil

Iranian oil tanker Grace 1 departed from Gibraltar in 2018, after local authorities denied the US request of seizing the ship and its cargo
Photo: A. Carrasco Ragel/EPA

The US Department of Justice says it has sold a million barrels of seized Iranian oil. A spokesperson for the Department of Justice said the money from the Iranian oil would go to the US "Victims" of the "State-Sponsored Terrorism" Fund.

The sold oil was seized by the US under its sanctions program last year by intercepting the Iranian Crude oil to the US port.

The seizures are part of Washington's tough economic sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program. The US has designated Iranian groups as "terrorists." Iran rejects the US accusations and has been battling with the US at the International Court of Justice. Iran-US tensions have been running on for years.

The US Department of Justice spokesman Marc Raimondi said that the fuel sold will be distributed to a fund for the "victims" of "state-sponsored terrorism." The black-listed country by the US as the states who "sponsor terrorism" are Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and Syria.

However, there is no firm evidence of the US accusations.

“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,” Marc Raimondi said. The value of the gasoline was not known but was likely worth tens of millions of dollars based on benchmark European gasoline prices, according to the Reuters

Publish : 2021-02-14 14:22:00

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