The Coast Guard in the western sector reported that the Zawiya Refinery guards managed, on Saturday, to seize a ship smuggling fuel north of Abu Kammash, off the coast of Zuwara, and took it to Tripoli port.
The Coast Guard and Security in Zuwara criticized the seizure, which it described as illegal, stressing that the ship is one of the cargo ships that has a shipping agent in the port of Brega, and is active in the western region of fuel smuggling networks through ships that resort to closing tracking and sensor devices before entering the waters of Libya, some of which operate regular routes on specific destinations between Libya, Malta and Turkey to smuggle Libyan fuel.
The incident comes nearly a week after a ship ran aground off the coast of the Tunisian city of Gabes, suspected of being involved in smuggling fuel across the Libyan coast, which led to annual losses of more than 750 million dollars, according to the estimates of the National Oil Corporation.
