image source, X/SEC_NOEM
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According to the Department of Homeland Security, this Saturday the United States seized a tanker that had left a Venezuelan port in international waters off the coast of Venezuela.
It is the second time this month that the United States has seized a ship off that country’s coast. The move comes after US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would order a “blockade” on sanctioned oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuela.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem published a video of the recording on the social network X.
“In a predawn operation on December 20, the U.S. Coast Guard, with assistance from the War Department, seized a tanker that had last docked in Venezuela,” Noem wrote in her report.
He also released a seven-minute video that appears to show American helicopters landing on the deck of a ship with the name “Centuries” written on the hull.
“The United States will continue to pursue the illicit transportation of sanctioned oil used to finance narco-terrorism in the region,” Noem tweeted, adding: “We will find them and stop them.”
In a statement from its Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, the Venezuelan government condemned the “robbery and hijacking” of the ship, which it described as a “serious act of piracy” by US military personnel.
Caracas also rejected “the enforced disappearances of the occupation” and said that “these acts will not go unpunished” and will denounce them to the United Nations Security Council and other international bodies.
According to the Vessel Finder website, Centuries is a Panama-flagged vessel built in 2001.
image source, Getty/Reuters
Boarded in international waters
The BBC has contacted the White House for comment.
The operation was led by the US Coast Guard and was similar to an operation conducted earlier this month. According to American sources, the ship was boarded by a tactical team specializing in international waters.
In recent weeks, the United States. It has increased its military presence in the Caribbean Sea and carried out deadly attacks on ships whose crew members it accuses, without providing evidence, of sending drugs to US territory. A hundred people were killed in the attacks
Because of such attacks and the lack of evidence that their targets were legitimate targets, the military came under increasing congressional scrutiny.
Washington accuses Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading a designated terrorist organization called the Cartel of the Suns, which he denies. The Trump administration accuses him and the group of using “stolen” oil for “financing, narcoterrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping.”
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, relies heavily on revenue from its crude exports to finance public spending.
Trump’s announcement of a “blockade” came less than a week after the U.S. seized an oil tanker believed to be part of the so-called “ghost fleet,” the group of ships allegedly secretly transporting Venezuelan crude to evade U.S. sanctions.
The White House said the ship in question, called Skipper, had been involved in “illegal oil shipments” and that it would be transferred to a US port. The Venezuelan government condemned the move and Maduro claimed that the US had “kidnapped the crew” and “stole” the ship.
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