Iran has confirmed that Franco-German cyclist Lennart Monterlos, who vanished on 16 June while touring the country by bicycle, is in custody. In an interview with French daily Le Monde published 10 July, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the 18-year-old "was arrested for committing a crime" and that an official notice had been sent to the French embassy. He did not specify the alleged offence or where Monterlos is being held. Monterlos disappeared during a planned 35,000-kilometre trip from Europe to Asia, prompting the French government to label the case "worrying" and to open contacts with both Iranian authorities and the cyclist’s family. France’s minister for citizens abroad, Laurent Saint-Martin, had earlier warned that the situation reflected what Paris describes as Iran’s deliberate practice of detaining Western nationals. The teenager is now the third French citizen known to be detained in Iran, alongside academics Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, whose continued imprisonment has already led France to file a case against Tehran at the International Court of Justice. The new arrest is expected to intensify diplomatic friction, with the French foreign ministry reiterating its advice that nationals avoid travel to Iran because of the risk of arbitrary detention.