TEHRAN, Oct. 31 (Xinhua) -- Iranian maritime guards have seized two foreign fishing vessels trespassing on the country's southern territorial waters, Iran's IRIB news agency reported on Tuesday.
Belonging to two neighboring states, the vessels were seized by the maritime guards of the southwestern Iranian city of Abadan as they were trespassing Iran's territorial waters and catching fish with unauthorized fishing equipment, IRIB quoted Lotfali Pakbaz, commander of Khuzestan province's border guards, as saying, without specifying the date of the seizure and the nationalities of the ships.
Pakbaz said the vessels' captains and crew members, whose number he put at nine, were arrested, stressing that they were all foreign nationals.
He added 3,000 kilograms of fish and shrimp, caught in Iran's territorial waters, were seized from the vessels, noting that the suspects and their ships were handed over to Iran's judicial authorities. ■
