The US military has seized another oil tanker at sea in support of Donald Trump’s sanctions against Venezuela, military officials announced on Thursday.
Veronica, a crude oil tanker that marine records suggest is sailing under a Guyanese flag, was boarded in a pre-dawn action by US marines and sailors, the US Southern Command said in a post on social media.
The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, confirmed the action in a separate post, praising “heroic Coast Guard men and women [who] once again ensured a flawlessly executed operation, in accordance with international law”.
She said the vessel was part of a “ghost fleet” of foreign-flagged tankers operating in defiance of the president’s “quarantine” of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean.
The announcement came ahead of Trump’s scheduled White House meeting Thursday with María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel peace prize winner, to discuss the US capture of the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, in Caracas earlier this month, and Venezuela’s future.
The operation was conducted in cooperation with the US Coast Guard, homeland security department and justice department, the Southern Command post said. It included blurry, black-and-white aerial footage appearing to show service members descending on to the tanker’s deck from a helicopter.
“[Forces] launched from USS Gerald R Ford (CVN 78) and apprehended Motor/Tanker Veronica without incident. The Veronica is the latest tanker operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean, proving the effectiveness of Operation Southern Spear yet again,” the message said.
It did not explain precisely where the operation took place, but according to marinetraffic.com the 815ft (249m) vessel’s last recorded position 12 days ago was off the coast of Venezuela.
According to Reuters, citing shipping documents from state company PDVSA and monitoring service tankertrackers.com, it departed empty from Venezuelan waters in early January, but had not returned to Venezuela as other ships have in recent days.
It is the sixth known boarding and seizure by the US military of a foreign-flagged oil tanker in support of Trump’s clamping down on the Venezuelan oil industry since the capture of Maduro and his subsequent removal to the US earlier this month, an operation including air strikes on Caracas that Venezuelan officials say killed more than 100 military personnel and civilians.
On Friday, Southern Command announced the boarding of a vessel named Olina in the Caribbean Sea near Trinidad, the fifth interdiction of such ships in recent weeks. That assault was also launched from the aircraft carrier the USS Gerald R Ford.
Separately, there have been a series of strikes on suspected drug boats off the coast of Venezuela since the autumn.
The Trump administration has moved to control the distribution of Venezuela’s oil products globally after ousting Maduro.
“The Department of War is unwavering in its mission to crush illicit activity in the Western Hemisphere,” Southern Command said in its post on Thursday.
The US has said Venezuela is using false-flag tankers to try to disguise its operations, or using vessels whose registrations were cancelled before they were intercepted. In the first and most prominent such action to date, US forces boarded the Russian-flagged oil tanker Marinera in the Atlantic on 7 January.
That ship, which was being shadowed by a Russian submarine, was pursued across the Atlantic from the Caribbean for more than two weeks. Britain’s ministry of defence confirmed it had assisted US forces in the operation to capture it.
Trump announced last week an agreement with Venezuela’s interim leaders that he said would provide up to 50m barrels of crude oil to the US. He also signed an executive order to “safeguard” Venezuelan oil revenues in US-controlled accounts.
Politically, the president has largely sidelined Machado, instead recognizing Maduro’s former vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, as Venezuela’s interim leader even as Trump insists the US will “run” the country.
On the day of Maduro’s capture, the US president remarked that Machado was a “nice woman”, but claimed she lacked the “respect” needed to govern Venezuela.
Venezuela’s ambassador to the UK, Félix Plasencia, an ally of Rodríguez, was also scheduled to be in Washington on Thursday to discuss with Trump administration officials the next steps of a plan for the country’s immediate future.
Additional reporting by Lauren Gambino
