The US has seized a sixth tanker in the Caribbean Sea in its ongoing efforts to control Venezuelan oil exports, officials said.
The ship, Veronica, was boarded in a pre-dawn operation “without incident” because it defied President Donald Trump’s “quarantine of sanctioned vessels,” the US military said.
“The only oil that leaves Venezuela is the oil that is coordinated properly and in accordance with the law,” the Southern Command said.
Since the US military invaded Venezuela and ousted its president Nicolás Maduro this month, Trump has said he plans to tap more of the country’s oil reserves.
“The Veronica is the latest tanker to operate in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean,” the US Southern Command said in a post on social media.
It also posted a video showing Marines and sailors boarding the tanker.
The Veronica, a Guyanese-flagged crude oil tanker, left Venezuelan waters in early January, according to monitoring service TankerTrackers.com.
The database of the International Maritime Organization shows that the ship was previously registered in Russia under different names.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on social media that Thursday’s tanker seizure was carried out with “close coordination with our partners” in the military as well as the state and justice departments.
“Our heroic Coast Guard men and women once again ensured a flawless enforcement operation, in accordance with international law,” Noem added.
It suggests Washington will continue to crack down on the so-called dark fleet, which consists of more than 1,000 vessels carrying permitted oil, while the US works with Venezuela’s interim government to control the country’s oil sales.
It also comes a day after an American official said the US had completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil, worth $500m (£373m).
Trump last week asked White House oil executives to invest $100bn in energy infrastructure in Venezuela. They say significant changes are needed to make the country an attractive investment.
The seizure of tankers has had a major impact on Venezuela’s oil exports.
In the month of January, crude oil loading on ships fell to almost half of normal levels, the Wall Street Journal reported citing shipping-analytics provider Kpler.
The only ships loading crude oil at Venezuelan ports are bound for the US and for Venezuelan refineries, some of which are not close to oil fields, the company said.
Kpler estimated that as of January 13, about 15.5 million barrels of crude oil were on 17 tankers in Venezuelan waters, not including the ships already on their way to the US. If Trump wants to expand the crackdown, the U.S. could control it, Kpler said.
The latest tanker seizure happened just hours before a meeting between Trump and Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado at the White House.
Trump has previously described him as a “freedom fighter”, but rejected the idea of appointing him to lead Venezuela after Maduro’s ouster, arguing that he does not have enough support at home.
A Venezuelan government envoy, too, is expected to travel to Washington on Thursday to meet with US officials and take initial steps to reopen the country’s embassy, the New York Times reported.
“The emissary, Félix Plasencia, is the first representative of the country’s ruling political movement, known as chavismo, to visit the American capital in an official capacity in years,” the newspaper wrote.