US seizes oil tanker last docked in Venezuela
The United States has seized an oil tanker in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, just days after President Donald Trump announced he would impose a “blockade” on all sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed the seizure in a post on X.
“The United States will continue to monitor the illicit movement of sanctioned oil used to finance narcoterrorism in the region,” Noem wrote.
“We will find you and stop you.”
He added that the US Coast Guard, with support from the Pentagon, detained the ship before dawn on Saturday.
The operation comes just days after Trump announced he would impose a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers entering and exiting the South American country, and after American forces seized an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast on December 10.
Noem released declassified video of U.S. helicopter personnel landing on a ship called the Centuries.
A crude oil tanker flying under the Panamanian flag operates under that name and was recently spotted near the coast of Venezuela, according to the MarineTraffic project, which tracks the movements of ships worldwide using publicly available data.
It was not immediately clear whether the ship was under US sanctions.
The action was a “consensual boarding” when the tanker was stopped voluntarily and US forces were allowed to board, according to a US official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Trump had promised that the USA would impose a blockade on Venezuela after the first tanker was seized.
This comes as Trump has toughened his rhetoric towards Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and warned that his days in power are numbered.
The president this week again justified his announcement of a “blockade” of oil tankers traveling to or from the South American country facing American sanctions by demanding that Venezuela return assets it seized from U.S. oil companies years ago.
When asked about his newest tactic in his pressure campaign against Maduro, Trump touched on lost US investments in Venezuela, suggesting that the Republican administration’s moves were at least motivated by drug trafficking accusations as well as disagreements over oil investments. Some sanctioned tankers are already moving away from Venezuela.
“We’re not going to let anyone through who shouldn’t be passing,” Trump told reporters.
“You remember, they took all our energy rights. Not long ago, they took all our oil. We want it back, too. They took it, they took it illegally.”
The targeting of the tankers comes as Trump ordered the Defense Department to carry out a series of attacks on ships in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific Ocean that his administration alleges are smuggling fentanyl and other illicit drugs into the United States and beyond.
At least 104 people have lost their lives in 28 known attacks since the beginning of September.
The attacks have faced scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and human rights activists who say the administration has presented insufficient evidence that its targets were indeed drug traffickers and that the deadly attacks amounted to extrajudicial killings.
Maduro said that the main purpose of the US military operations was to remove him from power.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview published in Vanity Fair this week that Trump “wants to keep blowing up boats until Maduro cries uncle.”
with AP
