JOHOR BARU: The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) was given a special award of appreciation from Indonesia's Maritime Security Agency (Bakamla) for helping to confiscate crude oil worth US$305mil (RM1.3bil) during a joint operation.
MMEA Enforcement and Coordination Division director Rear Admiral Aminuddin Abdul Rashid said the incident occurred on July 7 at 7.30am when Bakamla detected suspicious activity between two vessels near North Natuna waters.
“Bakamla has spotted an Iranian-flagged vessel conducting a ship-to-ship oil transfer with the Cameroon-flagged vessel without a permit.
“The Iranian ship, MT Arman 114, was carrying 272,569 metric tonnes of light crude oil, valued at 4.6 trillion rupiah (RM1.3bil).
“The ship then tried to escape and sailed into Malaysian waters; Bakamla then requested help from MMEA, where we then deployed our Special Task and Rescue (Star) team to apprehend the vessel,” he said.
He said this during a joint press conference after the award presentation ceremony at Johor MMEA headquarters, here, on Saturday (July 29).
Also present were Bakamla chief Dr Aan Kurnia, Singapore Police Coast Guard (SPCG) Commander SAC Cheang Keng Keong, and Johor Maritime director First Admiral (Maritime) Nurul Hizam Zakaria.
The joint operation between MMEA and Bakamla managed to apprehend 28 crew members and three passengers of MT Arman at 2pm on the same day, he added.
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