A commercial flight from Iran to Lebanon was delayed upon arrival and searched at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport on Thursday, after Lebanon reportedly received intelligence of an Iranian plan to smuggle cash into the country to fund their proxy terror group Hezbollah.

The incident was reported by Iranian and Lebanese media. According to Israel’s Channel 12, Lebanese authorities were alerted to the potential contents of the flight before its arrival at the airport.

The report said security services were mobilized to search the plane.

Mahan Air is widely linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and has been under US sanctions since 2011 for allegedly providing support to the IRGC’s Quds Force, and for supplying weapons shipments to Iranian proxy groups across the Middle East.

According to reports in Lebanon, members of an Iranian diplomatic delegation aboard the plane tried to prevent it from being searched, citing diplomatic immunity, but after security forces were called in, the plane was eventually scanned.

Lebanon’s Interior Minister Bassem Mawlawi confirmed the incident in a statement saying “the Iranian Mahan Air plane is now being searched bag by bag at Beirut airport.”

Citing defense sources, Lebanese media also reported that an Iranian diplomat was removed from the flight and detained after refusing to allow his personal belongings to be searched by airport authorities. One report said the contents of the diplomat’s bag were confiscated by Lebanese authorities after cash was found in his belongings.

According to the reports, “intensive negotiations are underway” between Lebanese and Iranian authorities, who said the contents of the diplomat’s bag were solely intended for use at the Iranian embassy, and are protected under international law.

There was no further information on what security services found in their search of the plane.

Last week, a report in the UK newspaper The Times said Iran was looking into establishing an air corridor to Lebanon by which to resupply the Hezbollah terror group, after losing its land route through Syria with the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The report added that Western nations are “concerned that Iran has lost [Damascus as] its go-to airport in the region for smuggling weapons and is now trying to turn Beirut airport into its new logistics hub, just as they did in Syria.”

The paper noted that this would be in breach of Israel’s ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah, which prohibits the terror group’s rearmament.

In early December, The Times of Israel reported that an Iranian flight suspected of carrying weapons intended for Hezbollah was forced to turn around by the Israeli Air Force over Syria.

In recent months, the Israel Defense Forces has forced several Iranian flights to make U-turns over Syrian or Iraqi airspace, after they were suspected of carrying weapons to Hezbollah.

The IDF has said that during the truce, it would continue to act to prevent all weapon deliveries to the Lebanese terror group, including by striking shipments anywhere in Lebanon or Syria.