US seizes second oil tanker as Trump ramps up pressure on Maduro
The vessel appeared to be a crude oil tanker called Centuries which operates under a Panamanian flag.
US forces on Saturday stopped an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela for the second time in less than two weeks as President Donald Trump continues to ramp up pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The pre-dawn operation comes days after Trump announced a “blockade” of all sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of the South American country and follows the December 10 seizure by American forces of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed that the US coastguard with help from the defence department stopped the oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela.
She also posted on social media an unclassified video of a US helicopter landing personnel on a vessel called Centuries.
A crude oil tanker flying under the flag of Panama operates under the name and was recently spotted near the Venezuelan coast, according to MarineTraffic, a project that tracks the movement of vessels around the globe using publicly available data.
It was not immediately clear if the vessel was under US sanctions.
“The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco terrorism in the region,” Ms Noem wrote on X.
“We will find you, and we will stop you.”
The action was a “consented boarding”, with the tanker stopping voluntarily and allowing US forces to board it, according to a US official who was not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The reasoning for the seizure of the Centuries is far less clear than it was with the first tanker, the Skipper, which was known to be part of a shadow fleet of tankers that operates on the fringes of the law to move sanctioned cargo and was not even flying a nation’s flag when it was seized by the US Coast Guard.
White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly claimed in an online post on Saturday that the Centuries was a similarly “falsely flagged vessel operating as part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet to traffic stolen oil” and that the oil it was carrying was sanctioned.
However, Dr Salvatore Mercogliano, a maritime historian and merchant shipping expert at Campbell University, said that according to several shipping industry databases, the Centuries appeared to be operating legally.
“Everything indicates that she is a properly registered vessel,” Dr Mercogliano said, though he did note that it is almost certain that the Centuries took on a load of sanctioned oil.
To Dr Mercogliano, even despite the fact that the Centuries was carrying oil that was subject to sanctions, the seizure is “a big escalation”.
“This one is meant to scare other tankers away,” he added.
Venezuela’s government in a statement on Saturday characterised the US forces’ actions as “criminal” and vowed to not let them “go unpunished” by pursuing various legal avenues, including by filing complaints with the United Nations Security Council.
“The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela categorically denounces and rejects the theft and hijacking of another private vessel transporting Venezuelan oil, as well as the enforced disappearance of its crew, perpetrated by United States military personnel in international waters,” the statement said.
Following the first tanker seizure, of a vessel named the Skipper, Mr Trump vowed that the US would carry out a blockade of Venezuela.
It all comes as Mr Trump has ratcheted up his rhetoric towards Mr Maduro and warned that the long-time Venezuelan leader’s days in power are numbered.
