Iran tankers used fake Iraqi documents to dodge US sanctions, Baghdad says

"We received some verbal inquiries about oil tankers being detained in the Persian Gulf by US naval forces carrying Iraqi shipping manifests," Abdel-Ghani said on state television late on Sunday.

"It turned out that these tankers were Iranian ... and were using forged Iraqi documents. We explained this to the relevant authorities with complete transparency and they also confirmed this."

Later on Monday, Iran's oil ministry denied the reports about Iranian oil tankers being seized by the United States.

This comes as Washington has been ramping up sanctions on Iran's oil exports, as part of US President Donald Trump renewed "maximum pressure" campaign, aimed at cutting Iran’s oil exports to zero in a bid to force Tehran into talks over its nuclear program.

In December, Reuters reported that a fuel smuggling network using forged documents has generated at least $1 billion annually for Iran and its proxies in Iraq.

The network sells crude exclusively to companies that own refineries and does not supply trading firms, Abdel-Ghani said, adding that several traders were behind the scheme.