4 days ago - Monochrome video showed a helicopter flying next to the tanker and US troops boarding the vessel. The seizure marks the sixth vessel targeted in recent weeks as part of the effort by the Trump administration to control the Venezuelan oil industry

4 days ago - His administration has said it expects to sell at least 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned Venezuelan oil. A free press is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy. Support trusted journalism and civil dialogue. Donate now · Left: Footage from a video released by U.S. Southern Command shows the Venezuela-linked tanker Veronica at sea, in this screen grab taken from a handout video released on Jan.

1 week ago - The other 12 tankers are not broadcasting any signals and have not been located in new imagery because they're operating in 'dark mode'. On December 16, US President Trump imposed a 'complete blockade' on sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers, in a move Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday said was one of the largest 'quarantines' in modern history.

3 days ago - 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.

December 10, 2025 - It's a video, not an article. ... At 6am today, US forces boarded the Skipper off Venezuela’s coast. 1.1 million barrels seized. Two helicopters. Twenty operators. Zero resistance. This is not about one tanker. The Skipper was sanctioned in 2022 for financing Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards through an illicit oil network run by Gulf businessman Viktor Artemov.

1 week ago - A video posted online by the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, shows what she says is the US Coast Guard boarding and seizing the tanker Olina in international waters east of the Caribbean Sea on 9 January.

2 weeks ago - Since the U.S. imposed energy sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, traders and refiners buying Venezuelan oil have resorted to a "shadow fleet" of tankers that disguise their location, or to vessels already sanctioned for transporting Iranian or Russian oil.

6 hours ago - Johnson refuted suggestions Trump could take action in Greenland without the approval of Congress, as he did in Venezuela during an operation to capture its president Nicolas Maduro.

1 month ago - A video posted on the X account of the US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, shows aerial footage of a helicopter approaching a vessel at sea. She wrote: 'In a pre-dawn action early this morning on Dec 20, the US Coast Guard with the ...

2 days ago - Maduro said in October 2025 that the US wanted to seize Venezuela's oil and that the Bolivarian Army of Venezuela had been mobilized to repel a land invasion. The Russian tanker Seahorse, sanctioned by the European Union and the UK, attempting to deliver naphtha (a product necessary to help export Venezuela's heavy crude) to Venezuela was forced several times by USS Stockdale to turn back towards Cuba, although it eventually reached Venezuela in November 2025.