Mohsen Rezaei has accused the head of the US military’s Central Command (Centcom) of running oil smuggling operations in the Strait of Hormuz with the support of the UAE’s military, Al Jazeera reports.

“Over the past two or three months, on average, we have been striking five of these smuggling vessels every night,” Rezaei has told state-owned Press TV. “These are the very operations overseen by the commander of the US Central Command.”

He has claimed that “personnel from the UAE armed forces” were used and deployed “in support of these operations”.

He has also accused the US president of being involved, saying, “Trump has teamed up with a number of smugglers in these rocky coastal waters of Oman to carry out smuggling operations.”

There has been no response from the UAE or Centcom to these claims.