TEHRAN -- Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said Thursday its naval forces have seized two vessels carrying smuggled fuel near the Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf.

In a statement on its official news outlet Sepah News, the IRGC said that after seizing the vessels with a judicial order and transferring them to the southern port city of Bushehr, its forces detained 15 foreign crew members on board the ships and handed them over to the country's judicial authorities for legal proceedings.

It added that the two vessels were carrying more than 1 million liters of smuggled diesel, noting that they were part of a network involved in smuggling fuel over the past months and were identified and confiscated on the back of the monitoring and tracking by the IRGC Navy's intelligence forces.

Fuel smuggling is a persistent issue in Iran, which has some of the world's lowest fuel prices. The price gap creates a lucrative market for smugglers who transport Iranian fuel to neighboring countries where prices are significantly higher. Iranian officials estimate the state loses billions of US dollars annually due to such illicit trade.