Summary
The U.S. military said it boarded another sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea on Friday, seizing the vessel as part of a broader effort to control Venezuela’s oil distribution. The predawn raid involved Marines and Navy sailors launched from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, according to U.S. Southern Command, which said the operation left no “safe haven for criminals.”
Southern Command said it announced the seizure after the boarding, and the Coast Guard then took control of the tanker. The tanker was identified by the U.S. military as the Olina, the latest ship in a series of interdictions aimed at tankers traveling to and from Venezuela with embargoed oil.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted unclassified video on social media showing a U.S. helicopter landing on the tanker and U.S. personnel searching the deck. In the footage Noem shared, personnel tossed what appeared to be an explosive device in front of a door leading to inside the ship. Noem said the ship was “another ‘ghost fleet’ tanker ship suspected of carrying embargoed oil” and that it departed Venezuela “attempting to evade U.S. forces.”
The U.S. military and Southern Command framed the action as law enforcement tied to sanctions. Olina was described as the fifth sanctioned tanker seized by U.S. forces, and the operation followed other recent seizures carried out after the U.S. ouster of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid, the report said. In a later social media post, President Donald Trump said the seizure was carried out “in coordination with the Interim Authorities of Venezuela,” while offering no additional detail.
The report said Venezuela’s government acknowledged the incident in a statement and said it was working with U.S. authorities to return the tanker. In that statement, Venezuela’s government said the tanker “set sail without payment or authorization from the Venezuelan authorities,” and it added: “Thanks to this first successful joint operation, the ship is sailing back to Venezuelan waters for its protection and relevant actions.”
The Associated Press report also cited TankerTrackers.com co-founder Samir Madani, who said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document that at least 16 tankers left the Venezuelan coast in contravention of a U.S. quarantine intended to block sanctioned ships from conducting trade. Madani said Olina was among that flotilla. The report said U.S. government records showed the ship had previously been sanctioned for moving Russian oil under the name Minerva M and that it was flagged in Panama.
The report said the ship later showed a different registry on international shipping databases, while being listed as having a false flag—meaning the registration it claimed was not valid—and that ownership and management had been changed to a company in Hong Kong. According to ship tracking data cited in the report, the Olina last transmitted its location in November in the Caribbean north of Venezuela, and then “ran dark” with its location beacon turned off.
While Noem and the military framed seizures as enforcement, the report said other U.S. officials in the Trump administration indicated the operations also fit a business plan. It said the administration expected to sell 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned Venezuelan oil, with proceeds to go to both the U.S. and Venezuelan people, and that Trump expected the arrangement to continue indefinitely.
The report also said Vice President JD Vance told Fox News that the U.S. could “control” Venezuela’s “purse strings” by dictating where its oil can be sold. Madani estimated the Olina was loaded with 707,000 barrels of oil, and that the shipment could be worth more than $42 million at the roughly $60-a-barrel market price cited in the report.