According to the Justice department, about 1.1 million barrels of fuel were confiscated with the assistance of foreign partners,
Washington said the shipments violated US sanctions.
![In May, Venezuela celebrated the arrival of five Iranian tankers delivering badly needed fuel to alleviate shortages in Caracas [File: Ernesto Vargas/ AP Photo]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2020/8/14/a32407334ef4484da0e898c491859ac9_18.jpg)
Iran’s ambassador to Venezuela claimed that neither the ships nor their owners were Iranian.
A judge issued a warrant for the seizure of the oil cargo from the four tankers after the US filed a lawsuit last month.
In a statement on Friday, the US Justice Department said it had successfully executed the seizure of a multimillion dollar fuel shipment by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
The IRGC is a branch of the Iranian armed forces that the US has designated a foreign terrorist organisation.
The statement said that thr seized property is now in US custody, without specifying when or where the seizures took place.
The US Justice Department said that following the seizure, Iran’s navy made an unsuccessful bid to board an unrelated ship in an apparent attempt to recover the seized petroleum.
Iranian Ambassador to Venezuela Hojat Soltani described reports of the seizures as false propaganda.
In a tweet, he said that this is another lie and act of psychological warfare perpetrated by the US propaganda machine.
Washington has imposed heavy sanctions on both Iran and Venezuela to block oil exports. It wants to drive Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power and change the behaviour of Iran’s leaders.
