The US seized another oil tanker off Venezuela on Saturday, a move Caracas deemed a “theft and kidnapping,” in the latest salvo of a pressure campaign by Washington, the US government said.
It was the second time in two weeks that US forces have interdicted a tanker in the region, and comes days after US President Donald Trump announced a blockade of “sanctioned oil vessels” heading to and leaving Venezuela.
“In a pre-dawn action early this morning on Dec. 20, the US Coast Guard with the support of the Department of War apprehended an oil tanker that was last docked in Venezuela,” US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem wrote on social media.
Photo: DHS/Handout via REUTERS
The post was accompanied by a nearly eight-minute video of aerial footage that showed a helicopter hovering just above the deck of a large tanker at sea.
Caracas slammed the seizure as theft and kidnapping, saying that “those responsible for these serious events will answer to justice and to history for their criminal conduct.”
A post from the US Department of Homeland Security identified the vessel as the Centuries and said it was “suspected of carrying oil subject to US sanctions.”
Centuries is a Chinese-owned, Panama-flagged oil tanker, according to TankerTrackers, an online service monitoring oil shipments and storage.
It said that Centuries loaded 1.8 million barrels of crude oil at a Venezuelan port earlier this month before being escorted out of Venezuela’s exclusive economic zone on Thursday last week. The VesselFinder database also listed the ship’s last recorded location as off the Venezuelan coast.
An AFP review found that Centuries does not appear on the US Department of the Treasury’s list of sanctioned companies and individuals.
White House deputy spokeswoman Anna Kelly wrote on social media that the tanker “contained sanctioned PDVSA oil,” in reference to Venezuela’s state oil company, and charged the ship as being “a falsely flagged vessel operating as part of the Venezuelan shadow fleet.”
On Dec. 10, US forces seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, which the US attorney general said was involved in carrying sanctioned oil from Venezuela to Iran.
The US has for months been building a major military deployment in the Caribbean with the stated goal of combating Latin American drug trafficking, taking particular aim at Venezuela.
Venezuelan Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez voiced defiance in comments at a public event in Caracas broadcast Saturday on state TV — although he made no mention of the interdicted ship.
“We are waging a battle against lies, manipulation, interference, military threats, and psychological warfare,” he said, adding that it “will not intimidate us.”
There are currently 11 US warships in the Caribbean: the world’s largest aircraft carrier, an amphibious assault ship, two amphibious transport dock ships, two cruisers and five destroyers.
Caracas views the operation as a campaign to push out Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro — whom Washington and many nations view as an illegitimate president — and to “steal” Venezuelan oil.
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