(CNN) - The Justice Department intercepted a multibillion-dollar shipment of fuel from an organization classified as a foreign terrorist in Iran to Venezuela, according to a press release on Friday.
Justice officials say the seizure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shipment is the largest ever made by the Iranian government of fuel shipments.
After executing a court-issued seizure order, the government seized nearly 1,116 million barrels of cargo of petroleum products that were on board four foreign tankers named M / T Bella, M / T Pandi, M / T Luna and M / T Bering, prosecutors said in a statement with the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.
Today in international waters, Iranian forces, including two ships and an Iranian "Sea King" helicopter, overtook and boarded a ship called the 'Wila.' pic.twitter.com/455UQ5jwHT
- US Central Command (@CENTCOM) August 12, 2020
When the seizure operation was completed, "the Iranian navy forcibly boarded an unrelated ship in an apparent attempt to recover the seized oil, but was unsuccessful," prosecutors said.
The failed mission of the Iranian army was captured on video and posted on the Twitter account of the United States Central Command.
"The proceeds from these shipments allegedly benefited the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated foreign terrorist organization," State Department spokesman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement Friday, adding that the proceeds "if successfully seized in US courts, it could now support the US Fund for Victims of State-Sponsored Terrorism instead of those involved in terrorism, such as the IRGC."
Last May, federal authorities in the Southern District of New York announced the seizure of a North Korean freighter that was used to transport valuable coal to other countries and was being sold to finance that country's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program.
The North Korean ship called the M / V Wise Honest transported heavy machinery to the country, including 412,584 kilograms of "rolled steel."