Iran maintaining oil smuggling to Venezuela, despite U.S. sanctions

Islam Mohamed

Iran is smuggling its oil through the Atlantic, defying economic sanctions imposed by the United States on it.

The first shipment of Iranian oil has already arrived in Venezuela which is also challenging the U.S. by the same move.

Growing threats

A military confrontation has not happened between the U.S. and Iran, despite a rise in verbal tensions between the two countries.

This is tempting Iranian officials into escalating their rhetoric against Washington.

The same officials considered the decision of the U.S. not to attack the shipment of Iranian oil heading to Venezuela as a new victory for Iran.

The Iranian embassy in Venezuela posted a video of an oil vessel anchoring at the Venezuelan coast.

However, the video turned out to be 12 years old and the vessel turned out to be British. The embassy had to remove the video after it was criticized by social media activists.

Mullahs’ chance

The Iranian vessel carried 1.5 million barrels of Iranian oil to Venezuela, according to media reports.

The deal serves the economic interests of Iran, whose oil exports have dropped to zero since May 2019 because of the end of U.S. waivers on these exports.

The U.S. sanctions on Iran, which started coming into effect in 2018, deterred foreign companies away from conducting business in Iran. This caused Iran billions of dollars in losses.

The U.S. usually blacklists persons and companies doing business with Iran and accuses them of violating its sanctions regime on the Islamic Republic.

In April this year, Washington warned against dubious flights between Tehran and the Venezuelan capital of Caracas. This came amid reports of the sale of Venezuelan gold to Tehran in return for oil.

Venezuela gave Tehran 9 tons of gold, the worth of half a billion dollars, in advance, according to Bloomberg.