Indonesia’s coast guard said Tuesday that it had seized an Iran-flagged supertanker ship suspected of moving crude oil illegally in the Southeast Asian nation's waters.
Indonesian authorities said the MT Arman 114 was carrying 272,569 metric tons of light crude oil, valued at 4.6 trillion rupiah ($304 million) when it was captured last week.
The 26-year-old tanker was seized after being spotted in Indonesia’s North Natuna Sea, suspected of moving oil to Cameroon-flagged MT S Tinos without a permit on Friday, Aan Kurnia, chief of Indonesia's country’s maritime security agency, said.
"MT Arman was spoofing their automatic identification system (AIS) to show its position was in the Red Sea but in reality it is here," he told reporters Tuesday. "So it seems like they already had a malicious intent."
