Iran Revolutionary Guard Says It Seized Ships in Hormuz Over Suspected US Military Cooperation

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on April 24 that it seized a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz because it had detected signs of cooperation with the US military.

The IRGC Navy said it had monitored the Epaminondas for the past six months and found that the vessel called at 11 US ports 36 times between October 2024 and January 2025, unloading 299,000 tons of cargo. It added that the ship had repeatedly ignored warnings and habitually violated maritime regulations, prompting the seizure.

The Guard Corps also claimed the MSC Francesca, seized alongside the Epaminondas, was owned by the “Israeli regime.” Both vessels have been taken into Iranian territorial waters, where inspections of their cargo and documents are under way.

The IRGC Navy seized two container ships on April 22: the Liberia-flagged Epaminondas and the Panama-flagged MSC Francesca. The move is widely interpreted as retaliation after US forces fired on and seized the Tusk, which had been headed for an Iranian port, on April 21.

Earlier, the US had seized two vessels belonging to Iran’s so-called dark fleet in the Indo-Pacific before a maritime blockade took effect. The term refers to ships used to illegally transport crude oil and other cargo in evasion of international sanctions.

Yonghyun Shin, Hankyung.com reporter, yonghyun@hankyung.com