What we know about US seizure of oil tanker off Venezuela

An American helicopter flies low over a misty blue sea as it approaches a huge ship. It hovers as camouflaged soldiers carrying rifles swing ropes to the deck.

The video, released by the US government, shows the latest in a series of escalations in Washington’s pressure campaign on Nicolas Maduro’s government – the seizure of a crude oil tanker.

The United States alleges the tanker is being used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran in an “illicit oil shipping network that supports foreign terrorist organizations.”

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Iván Gil described the seizure as “international piracy” and claimed that US President Donald Trump wanted Venezuelan energy resources.

Here’s what we know.

“We just seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela — a big tanker, a very large tanker, the largest that has actually ever been seized,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.

Footage of the operation was shared by District Attorney Pam Bondi on social media. Bondi said the warrant to seize the tanker was executed by the U.S. Coast Guard, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and the Department of Defense.

The exact location of the tanker at the time of its seizure was not clear, but a senior military official told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that the ship had just left a port in Venezuela.

The 45-second video shows an American team walking on the deck of the ship with their weapons drawn. No ship crew is visible.

A source familiar with the operation told CBS that the takeover included two helicopters, 10 Marines, 10 members of the US Coast Guard and special operations forces.

The source said that the process of boarding the ship involved a special group from the Coast Guard called the Maritime Security and Response Team.

This team is trained in counterterrorism and high-risk law enforcement procedures on board – such as the fast rope climb from a helicopter seen in the video. It was created after the September 11 attacks, during a comprehensive national security overhaul.

The Coast Guard led the operation with support from the Navy, officials told CBS.

Marine risk firm Vanguard Tech identified the ship as Skipper and said it believed the ship had been “spoofing” its location — or broadcasting a false location — for a long time.

The ship has sailed under other names, including Toyo and Adessa, since it was built 20 years ago. The Skipper vessel is 333 meters (1,092 feet) long and 60 meters wide, and is classified as a very large crude carrier (VLCC).

The ship “is said to be part of the Dark Fleet and has been sanctioned by the United States because it carries Venezuelan oil exports,” Vanguard Tech said. The dark fleet refers to ships used to smuggle sanctioned goods.

It is believed to have left the José oil port on Dec. 4 or 5, carrying about 1.8 million barrels of heavy crude oil, with about 200,000 barrels transferred to another ship before it was captured, Reuters reported, citing analysis from TankerTrackers.com and Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA.

CBS reported that the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Skipper in 2022, for his alleged involvement in oil smuggling that generated revenue for the Hezbollah group in Lebanon and the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran.

The BBC located the tanker on the MarineTraffic website, showing that the ship was sailing under the Guyanese flag when its location was last updated two days before its seizure. However, a statement issued by the Guyana Maritime Administration Department on Wednesday evening said the ship was “wrongly flying the Guyanese flag because it is not registered in Guyana.”

MarineTraffic shows it was last near Iran in mid-September before arriving off the coast of Guyana at the end of October and has made no further movements since then. This data may be partial or incorrect due to plagiarism.

When reporters asked him what the United States would do with the oil carried by the tanker, Trump said: “I think we’re keeping it… and I assume we’re going to keep the oil.”

Global crude oil prices are trading at around $61 (£46) per barrel, meaning the stock on board the Skipper could be worth more than $95 million – if it actually holds 1.6 million barrels after removing 200,000 barrels. The BBC did not verify the amount of oil on board the ship.

“For several years, the United States has imposed sanctions on the oil tanker due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network that supports foreign terrorist organizations,” Bondi, the top US attorney general, said of the seized ship.

Maduro has accused the United States of using its ongoing military buildup in the Caribbean and the “war on drugs” to try to oust him and get its hands on Venezuelan oil, something the United States denies.

Venezuela has the largest known reserves of crude oil in the world. But analysts highlighted the complexities. The oil is considered “heavy” and very viscous, which means that its extraction requires special equipment and knowledge.

Venezuela has also faced difficulties in exporting its vast resources due to aging infrastructure and severe sanctions imposed by the United States.

The Trump administration has focused for much of the past year on combating the flow of drugs — particularly fentanyl and cocaine — into the United States.

As part of these efforts, Trump designated two Venezuelan criminal groups — the Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles — as foreign terrorist organizations, the latter of which he claimed was led by Maduro himself.

Without providing evidence, Trump also accused Maduro of “emptying his prisons and mental institutions” and “forcing” his inmates to immigrate to the United States. Stopping immigration was another White House priority.

As part of the pressure campaign, the United States deployed 15,000 troops and a group 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 helicopters took off as part of the operation to seize the tanker.

Since early September, US forces have carried out more than 20 raids in international waters on boats allegedly carrying drugs. More than 80 people were killed.

The Trump administration says it is involved in a non-international armed conflict with alleged drug traffickers, whom it accuses of waging an irregular war against the United States.

The US also described those on board as “narco-terrorists”, but legal experts say the strikes were unlawful because that designation “did not turn them into legitimate military targets”.