The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) on Thursday stated that armed forces loyal to the political group seized about 18 billion Yemeni riyals (about $29 million) en route to the Central Bank of Aden, with the intention of handing it over to Saudi forces in the interim capital.

On Wednesday, STC-affiliated gunmen led by Aden security commander Awsan Al-Anshali, confiscated four containers holding the funds in Aden's port and transported them to the Jabal Hadid military camp, which is led by a brigade under STC President Aydros Al-Zubaidi.

STC spokesman Nizar Haitham said in a statement on Twitter Thursday that Al-Zubaidi had directed the seizure of the funds to prevent their transfer to what he described as the "corruption group” run by the internationally recognized government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

Haitham said the funds would be transferred to Saudi forces overseeing the implementation of a power sharing deal between the STC and the government known as the Riyadh agreement in Aden. The money will be used, in part, to pay salaries within the next week, Haitham said.

The STC claimed to have handed the funds over to Saudi forces at the time of publication.

Neither Hadi’s government nor the central bank provided comment on the seizure of the funds. 

(Correction: An earlier version of this story miscalculated the US dollar equivalent of 18 billion Yemeni riyals. It's about $29 million, not $72 million).