Eleven days after Gibraltar released a detained Iranian oil tanker in mid-August, over U.S. objections, the ship's Indian captain got an email from a top U.S. State Department official offering him several million dollars to steer the ship to a port where the U.S. could seize it, the Financial Times reported Wednesday. The State Department then confirmed the offer and the new strategy to mix offers of cash and threats of sanctions or even jail to thwart Iranian oil shipments. "We have conducted extensive outreach to several ship captains as well as shipping companies," a State Department spokeswoman told AFP.
The ship's captain, Akhilesh Kumar, ignored the Aug. 26 offer of "good news" from Brian Hook, the head of the State Department's Iran Action Group, so Hook tried again. "With this money you can have any life you wish and be well-off in old age," he wrote Kumar two days later. "If you choose not to take this easy path, life will be much harder for you." Two days after that, on Friday, the U.S. slapped sanctions on Kumar and the ship, renamed the Adrian Darya 1. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called the emails "outright blackmail" after failed "piracy."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Missionaries using tech to contact Amazon's Indigenous peopleWealthy US-backed evangelical groups are sending drones to reach remote and uncontacted tribes, despite legal prohibitions
-
August 3 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include a human data center, Donald Trump's enterprising spirit, and more
-
5 darkly funny cartoons about Israel blocking aid to GazaCartoons Artists take on forcing famine, avoiding aid, and more
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
-
Economists fear US inflation data less reliablespeed read The Labor Department is collecting less data for its consumer price index due to staffing shortages
-
Crypto firm Coinbase hacked, faces SEC scrutinySpeed Read The Securities and Exchange Commission has also been investigating whether Coinbase misstated its user numbers in past disclosures
-
Starbucks baristas strike over dress codespeed read The new uniform 'puts the burden on baristas' to buy new clothes, said a Starbucks Workers United union delegate
-
Warren Buffet announces surprise retirementspeed read At the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, the billionaire investor named Vice Chairman Greg Abel his replacement
