Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The haul included an Iranian gun boat and two rocket launchers
The US department of justice (DOJ) has forfeited the largest cache of weapons it has ever recovered from an Iranian vessel – 23 flat-screen TVs, ammunition and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition.
The haul was aboard a Revolutionary Guard vessel and is subject to forfeiture proceedings being conducted at the US court in Houston.
It began on 2 November, when a US Coast Guard (USCG) patrol craft came upon an Iranian car carrier, the Qanat, near the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
US officials say the vessel was carrying 4,913 pounds (2,205kg) of cocaine.
Before arresting the ship, the USCG officers found 21 flat-screen TVs among what the Navy refers to as ‘drug running contraband’.
These were seized in a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operating area by way of ‘drug intel’.
Image copyright AP Image caption An Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessel carrying a massive cache of arms was intercepted off the coast of Oman
The US has awarded $101m (£76m) in damages to two Iranian people who it says defrauded people living in Northern and Central Asia of millions of dollars by offering high-yield profits by way of shipping transfers of illicit goods.
The seizures reported by the BBC correspondent James Coomarasamy this week in Karachi, Pakistan – where the illegal business is said to be in full swing – have coincided with growing concerns about a wider spread of illegal transfers as the smuggling activity is not just on the borders of central Asia but of South and East Africa.
The owner of the Iranian car carrier, the official IRGC, have been slapped with five separate sanctions, according to the US Treasury, due to involvement in drug trafficking, terrorism and weapons proliferation.