This display screen seize from a video posted on the X account of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), Thursday, exhibits what the U.S. navy says is a pre-dawn motion to apprehend the Tanker Veronica within the Carribean Sea. The US has seized one other tanker within the Caribbean in its marketing campaign to manage oil leaving Venezuela, U.S. Southern Command stated Thursday. Marines and sailors apprehended the Tanker Veronica with out incident in a pre-dawn raid, the navy command liable for Central, South America and the Caribbean stated on social media, with a video exhibiting troopers rappelling onto a vessel’s deck. AFP / U.S. Southern Command / Handout-Yonhap
WASHINGTON — U.S. forces within the Caribbean Sea have seized one other sanctioned oil tanker that the Trump administration says has ties to Venezuela, a part of a broader U.S. effort to take management of the South American nation’s oil.
The U.S. Coast Guard boarded the tanker, named Veronica, early Thursday, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem wrote on social media. The ship had beforehand handed via Venezuelan waters and was working in defiance of President Donald Trump’s “established quarantine of sanctioned vessels within the Caribbean,” she stated.
U.S. Southern Command stated Marines and sailors launched from the plane provider USS Gerald R. Ford to participate within the operation alongside a Coast Guard tactical staff, which Noem stated carried out the boarding as in earlier raids. The navy stated the ship was seized “with out incident.”
A number of U.S. authorities social media accounts posted temporary movies that appeared to point out numerous components of the ship’s seize. Black-and-white footage confirmed no less than 4 helicopters approaching the ship earlier than hovering over the deck whereas armed troops dropped down by rope. At the very least 9 individuals may very well be seen on the deck of the ship.
The Veronica is the sixth sanctioned tanker seized by U.S. forces as a part of the trouble by Trump’s administration to manage the manufacturing, refining and international distribution of Venezuela’s oil merchandise and the fourth because the U.S. ouster of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro in a shock nighttime raid virtually two weeks in the past.
The Veronica final transmitted its location on Jan. 3 as being at anchor off the coast of Aruba, simply north of Venezuela’s important oil terminal. In line with the information it transmitted on the time, it was partially crammed with crude.
The ship is at the moment listed as flying the flag of Guyana and is taken into account a part of the shadow fleet that strikes cargoes of oil in violation of U.S. sanctions.
In line with its registration knowledge, the ship additionally has been generally known as the Gallileo, owned and managed by an organization in Russia. As well as, a tanker with the identical registration quantity beforehand sailed underneath the identify Pegas and was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Division for transferring cargoes of illicit Russian oil.
As with prior posts about such raids, Noem and the navy framed the seizure as a part of an effort to implement the legislation. Noem argued that the a number of captures present that “there isn’t any outrunning or escaping American justice.”
Talking to reporters on the White Home later Thursday, Noem declined to say what number of sanctioned oil tankers the U.S. is monitoring or whether or not the federal government is conserving tabs on freighters past the Caribbean Sea.
“I can’t converse to the specifics of the operation, though we’re watching the complete shadow fleet and the way they’re transferring,” she instructed reporters.
Nonetheless, different officers in Trump’s Republican administration have made clear that they see the actions as a technique to generate money as they search to rebuild Venezuela’s battered oil business and restore its economic system.
Trump met with executives from oil firms final week to debate his aim of investing $100 billion in Venezuela to restore and improve its oil manufacturing and distribution. His administration has stated it expects to promote no less than 30 million to 50 million barrels of sanctioned Venezuelan oil.
