An American helicopter flies low over a foggy blue sea as it approaches a gigantic ship. He hovers as camouflaged soldiers, armed with rifles, descend by ropes to the deck of the ship.
The video, released by the American government, shows the latest in a series of escalations in the pressure campaign led by Washington on the government of Nicolas Maduro: the seizure of an oil tanker.
The United States says the vessel is used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran in an “illicit oil transportation network that supports foreign terrorist organizations.”
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil called the seizure “international piracy” and says US President Donald Trump wants Venezuela’s energy resources.
Here’s what we know.
The operation
“We just seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela…a large, very large tanker…the largest ever seized, in fact,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
Footage of the operation was shared by Attorney General Pam Bondi on social media. Bondi said a warrant to seize the vessel was served by the U.S. Coast Guard, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.
The exact location of the ship at the time of the seizure is unclear, but a senior military official told the BBC’s US partner CBS News that the ship had just left a port in Venezuela.
The 45-second video shows a U.S. team running across the ship’s deck with weapons drawn. No crew members are visible.
The seizure involved two helicopters, 10 Marines, 10 U.S. Coast Guard personnel and special operations forces, a source familiar with the operation told CBS.
According to the source, the boarding of the ship involved an elite Coast Guard group called the Maritime Security and Response Team.
This team is trained in counterterrorism and high-risk police approach procedures, such as the rapid rope disembarkation from a helicopter shown in the video. It was created after the September 11 attacks, during a reformulation of national security.
The Coast Guard led the operation with support from the Navy, officials told CBS.
Victor Hansen, a former military lawyer and law professor at New England Law in Boston, said the Trump administration “has not been very clear in developing a legal justification” for the seizure.
“They don’t seem to have a military justification, unlike the attack on (drug) ships,” he added. “This seems more related to the violation of sanctions imposed on both Venezuela and Iran.”
According to Hansen, military operations, including “visit, approach, search and seizure” missions at sea, always rely on formal and informal analyzes conducted by military lawyers before and during the operation.
“But they do not have the command authority to approve or deny an operation,” he added. “What they do is advise commanders on the legalities, the risks and the benefits.”
Although the Venezuelan seizure was carried out by non-military law enforcement units, such as those of the Coast Guard, “there are lawyers who would perform similar functions.”
Hansen also noted that while ship boarding missions have occurred in the past – such as in the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Sea – the recent episode is different because the ship was seized with its cargo.
“It’s not something that’s been done recently,” he said.
The tanker
Marine risk firm Vanguard Tech identified the vessel as the Skipper and said it believed the vessel had been “spoofing” its position – or broadcasting a false position – for a long time.
Vanguard Tech said the ship “is believed to have been part of the Ghost Fleet and sanctioned by the United States for carrying Venezuelan oil exports.”
The so-called ghost fleet refers to vessels used to smuggle sanctioned goods.
The Skipper is believed to have left the oil port of José on December 4 or 5, with about 1.8 million barrels of heavy crude oil on board, of which about 200,000 barrels were transferred to another vessel before being seized, according to Reuters, citing an analysis by TankerTrackers.com and Venezuelan state-owned PDVSA.
The U.S. Treasury Department included the Skipper among ships subject to sanctions in 2022, CBS reported, for its alleged involvement in oil smuggling that generated revenue for the Hezbollah group in Lebanon and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force in Iran.
BBC Verify located the tanker on MarineTraffic, which showed the vessel was sailing under the Guyanese flag when its position was last updated two days before the seizure.
However, a press release from the Guyana Maritime Administration published Wednesday evening indicated that the skipper “falsely flew the Guyanese flag because it is not registered in the country”.
MarineTraffic shows it last visited near Iran in mid-September, before reaching the coast of Guyana in late October, and has made very little movement since then.
This data may be partial or incorrect due to location spoofing.
Oil seized
Asked by reporters what the United States would do with the oil carried by the tanker, Trump responded: “We’ll keep it, I guess…I guess we’ll keep it.”
On the world market, oil of the type carried by the ship costs around $61 per barrel, meaning the cargo aboard the Skipper could be worth more than $95 million, if it actually consists of 1.6 million barrels after the 200,000 are removed. The BBC was unable to confirm how much oil was actually on the ship.
Bondi, the top U.S. prosecutor, said of the seized vessel: “For several years, the tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its participation in an illicit oil transportation network that supports foreign terrorist organizations. »
Maduro has accused the United States of using its continued military buildup in the Caribbean and its “war on drugs” to try to remove him and take Venezuela’s oil – something the United States denies.
Venezuela has the largest known reserves of crude oil in the world. But analysts point out some complexities. Oil is considered “heavy” and very viscous, meaning its extraction requires specific equipment and knowledge.
Venezuela also faces difficulties exporting its vast resources due to its aging infrastructure and heavy sanctions imposed by the United States.
The broader US pressure campaign
The Trump administration has spent much of the last year combating drug trafficking — particularly fentanyl and cocaine — into the United States.
As part of this effort, Trump designated two Venezuelan criminal groups – the Tren de Aragua and the Cartel de los Soles – as foreign terrorist organizations and claimed that the latter was led by Maduro himself.
Without providing evidence, Trump also accused Maduro of “emptying his prisons and psychiatric hospitals” and “forcing” his inmates to emigrate to the United States. Stopping immigration is another White House priority.
As part of the pressure campaign, the United States deployed 15,000 troops and a number of aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers and amphibious assault ships to the Caribbean.
Among them is the world’s largest warship – the USS Gerald Ford – from which the helicopters used to seize the tanker took off.
Mick Mulroy, a former Marine, former CIA paramilitary officer and former Pentagon deputy defense secretary, told the BBC that the seizure of the tanker would “increase pressure” on the Venezuelan government as part of a broader campaign.
“Venezuela has considerable oil reserves,” he said.
“Seizing a ship carrying oil or a ship carrying the chemicals needed to extract crude oil from the ground sends a message, especially if it is just the start of a campaign.”
Since the beginning of September, US forces have carried out more than 20 attacks in international waters against boats suspected of transporting drugs. More than 80 people were killed.
The Trump administration says it is involved in a non-international armed conflict with suspected drug traffickers, whom it accuses of waging an irregular war against the United States.
The United States has also labeled those on board “narcoterrorists,” but legal experts say the attacks are illegal because that designation “does not make them legitimate military targets.”
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