U.S. Seizes Seventh Tanker in Caribbean Crackdown on Venezuelan Oil Exports

U.S. military forces have seized another oil tanker linked to Venezuela’s sanctioned crude exports—the seventh vessel intercepted in just over six weeks under President Donald Trump’s declared maritime “quarantine” in the Caribbean.

Seventh seizure under Operation Southern Spear

The latest ship, the Motor Vessel Sagitta, was stopped Jan. 20 in or near international waters off Venezuela and taken into U.S. custody “without incident,” U.S. Southern Command said in a statement. American officials say the tanker had loaded oil in Venezuela in defiance of U.S. sanctions and a White House order aimed at choking off and partially redirecting the country’s remaining oil revenues.

“The apprehension of another tanker operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean demonstrates our resolve to ensure that the only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully,” Southern Command said.

The operation marks a new phase in Washington’s intervention in Venezuela. Just 17 days after U.S. special operations forces captured President Nicolás Maduro in a raid on Caracas, the Trump administration is now using the Navy, Coast Guard, and sanctions law to target the country’s main source of income at sea, asserting sweeping authority to stop, seize, and sell cargoes of Venezuelan crude.

A tanker with murky records

The Sagitta’s seizure highlights both the reach of the U.S. campaign and the opaque world of the so-called “shadow fleet” that moves sanctioned oil.

Wire service reports described the ship as Liberian-flagged and managed by a Hong Kong-based company. Other shipping records list it under Panama’s flag and tied to Sunne Co. Limited, a firm whose vessels have repeatedly drawn scrutiny from U.S. sanctions officials. The tanker had previously been designated under U.S. measures related to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Public tracking data showed Sagitta last transmitting its location more than two months ago in the Baltic Sea before going dark—a common tactic among tankers carrying sanctioned crude. U.S. officials say the vessel later loaded Venezuelan oil before entering the Caribbean, where it was intercepted by forces operating under U.S. Southern Command in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

American authorities have not disclosed where Sagitta is being taken or whether criminal or civil forfeiture proceedings have been filed. In earlier cases involving Iranian and Venezuelan oil, the Justice Department has sought to confiscate cargoes in U.S. courts and auction the crude, with proceeds held in U.S.-controlled accounts.

Wider interdiction campaign

Sagitta is the seventh tanker apprehended since Dec. 10 as part of Operation Southern Spear, an oil blockade the administration formally put in place in mid-December. The campaign has involved Coast Guard Maritime Security Response Teams, Marine boarding units, and Navy carriers and amphibious ships operating across the Caribbean and into the North Atlantic.

Targets have included large crude carriers such as the Skipper, seized Dec. 10 between Grenada and Trinidad with nearly 1.9 million barrels of alleged Venezuelan crude, and the Centuries, stopped Dec. 20 near Venezuelan waters. On Jan. 7, U.S. forces boarded the Marinera, formerly the Bella 1, in the North Atlantic between Iceland and Scotland—far from Venezuela—accusing it of sailing without a valid flag and resisting inspection.

Another tanker, Veronica, was taken Jan. 15 in a pre-dawn Marine and Coast Guard boarding launched from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. Southern Command at the time called it “the latest tanker operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine,” and said Operation Southern Spear was “unwavering in its mission to crush illicit activity in the Western Hemisphere.”

Trump has claimed the United States is on track to seize or secure control over as much as 50 million barrels of Venezuelan crude under the campaign, though that figure has not been independently verified by shipping or industry data. Administration officials have also asserted that Venezuelan oil shipments have been cut by more than 80 percent, a number that outside analysts say is still being assessed.

After Maduro’s capture, oil becomes the new front

The maritime push comes on the heels of one of the most dramatic U.S. operations in Latin America in decades. On Jan. 3, American special operations forces carried out airstrikes and a helicopter-borne raid around Caracas, capturing Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at or near the military complex of Fort Tiuna and flying them to U.S. custody to face criminal charges.

In a news conference that day at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump signaled that Venezuela’s vast oil reserves were central to his strategy.

“We’re going to have our very large U.S. oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country,” he said.

“We are going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump added, insisting that the U.S. presence “won’t cost us a penny” because it would be reimbursed from oil revenues.

Despite that rhetoric, Venezuela’s state institutions remain in Caracas. Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has asserted herself as interim leader and rejected talk of U.S. control, saying the country “will never again be anyone’s colony.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the United States is not formally at war with Venezuela and is not “governing” it, even as the White House tightens its grip over oil exports.

Legal rationale and international backlash

The legal framework for the tanker seizures rests on a network of U.S. sanctions and emergency authorities built up over several years.

In 2019 the Treasury Department designated state oil firm Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., or PdVSA, under an executive order targeting Venezuela’s oil sector, effectively barring most dealings by U.S. persons. A separate order that year froze all property of the Maduro government within U.S. jurisdiction.

Trump expanded that architecture in March 2025 by ordering tariffs on imports from countries that purchased Venezuelan oil, and again on Jan. 9 this year by declaring a national emergency over Venezuelan oil revenues held in U.S. Treasury accounts. That Jan. 9 order defined “Foreign Government Deposit Funds” as Venezuelan oil proceeds in U.S. custody and barred creditors from seizing them, stating they would be “preserved to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives” and used “for the good of the American and Venezuelan people.”

Together, those measures give Washington a path to sell seized Venezuelan crude and hold the money in U.S.-controlled accounts, while maintaining that the funds remain Venezuelan sovereign property.

Internationally, the campaign has drawn sharp criticism. Cuba has denounced the early December seizure of a tanker carrying oil destined for its ports as “an act of piracy and maritime terrorism” and “a serious violation of international law.” Venezuela’s National Assembly has condemned what it calls a “naval blockade” and passed legislation imposing long prison sentences on anyone who helps enforce or facilitate tanker seizures.

China, Russia, and Iran have also criticized the interceptions as breaches of maritime law and state sovereignty. There is no U.N. Security Council mandate authorizing a naval embargo on Venezuelan exports.

U.S. officials counter that they are enforcing lawful sanctions against a fleet of vessels engaged in deceptive practices, including flag-hopping, identity changes, and disabling tracking systems, and say many of the ships have ties to entities already designated for terrorism, narcotics, or sanctions evasion. They argue that when tankers sail without a valid flag or use fraudulent registrations, they can be treated as “stateless” under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, giving foreign navies the right to board and inspect them.

Economic and humanitarian stakes

Beyond the legal dispute, the expanding interdiction campaign has broad economic and humanitarian implications.

Venezuela’s oil production had already fallen sharply after years of mismanagement and earlier sanctions. Cutting off additional export routes threatens to further erode the government’s ability to import fuel, food, and medicine, deepening a crisis that has pushed millions of Venezuelans to leave the country over the past decade. U.N. officials have warned of the risk of worsening shortages and instability following the January raid and subsequent unrest.

At the same time, the promise of eventually restoring Venezuelan output under U.S.-backed management has unsettled global energy markets and domestic producers. Oil benchmarks have risen amid concerns about supply disruptions from Venezuela, the war in Ukraine, and tensions in the Middle East. Some U.S. drillers and environmental groups have criticized talk of a $100 billion program to rebuild Venezuela’s heavy-crude infrastructure as potentially undercutting U.S. production in the future and locking in new fossil fuel capacity.

For the global shipping industry, the sight of U.S. boarding teams rappelling onto tankers from the Caribbean to the North Atlantic has added a new layer of risk. Insurers and shipowners are reassessing coverage for vessels that call at Venezuelan ports or operate with gaps in their ownership and flag records, unsure how far the United States will extend its reach.

For now, Sagitta’s crew and cargo are under American guard as U.S. lawyers and policymakers decide what comes next. The ship that last pinged its position in the Baltic and went dark before emerging off Venezuela is now at the center of a campaign testing how far a major power can go in policing—and profiting from—another country’s oil on the high seas.