Officials in Papua New Guinea have seized a Singapore-bound oil tanker carrying an estimated $20 million worth of suspected stolen crude oil.
The ship's 21 crew have been arrested and taken to Kokopo police station in East New Britain province. Two were also arrested for possessing pornography.
PNG customs commissioner Gary Juffa told the National newspaper the tanker was intercepted after it entered PNG waters without reporting its arrival.
The oil is understood to have come from tanks at the closed Panguna copper and gold mine in central Bougainville, AAP reports.
Oil may have come from abandoned mine
Rebels took up arms in the late 1980s over pollution from the huge mine and unfair royalty payments. The fighting turned into a secessionist movement for independence from PNG.
The closed mine, now majority-owned by Rio Tinto, has been slowly torn apart by unscrupulous scrap metal merchants and is a rusty skeleton of its former glory.
Fuel oil has leaked from massive tanks as a result of neglect and damage and attempts to extract it have caused ponds of thick dark crude to form.
PNG authorities say the seized ship is suspected of carrying oil from those tanks.
