US seizes oil tanker and boards another, raising tensions with Russia

The Cardon oil refinery in Punto Fijo, Venezuela, Dec. 30, 2021. The United States on Wednesday seized an oil tanker in the North Atlantic that had evaded its effort to crack down on Venezuela’s energy exports, U.S. officials said. (Adriana Loureiro Fernández/The New York Times)

By NICHOLAS NEHAMAS, ERIC SCHMITT, JULIAN E. BARNES and CHRISTIAAN TRIEBERT

The United States on Wednesday seized an oil tanker in the North Atlantic that had evaded its effort to crack down on Venezuela’s energy exports, U.S. officials said, capping a pursuit that had lasted more than two weeks and raised tensions with Russia.

Around the same time, U.S. forces boarded another oil tanker in international waters near the Caribbean, a sign that President Donald Trump planned to continue to enforce a partial blockade on Venezuelan oil as he pressured the country’s new leader.

The first tanker, formerly known as the Bella 1 and recently reregistered with Russia as the Marinera, had eluded the U.S. Coast Guard after being stopped in the Caribbean on its way to pick up oil in Venezuela. Its crew began flying a Russian flag in a last-ditch effort to avoid seizure while Russia dispatched at least one naval vessel to meet and escort the ship. Russia made a formal diplomatic request last week asking the United States to stop its pursuit.

But there were no Russian vessels in the area when the Coast Guard boarded the ship Wednesday morning, averting the possibility of an armed standoff between the two countries, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the operation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. The crew of the tanker did not resist the boarding attempt, one of the U.S. officials said. The vessel was not carrying oil when it was boarded.

Still, the military dispatched a large force to assist the Coast Guard, including a Navy P-8 submarine-hunting aircraft and AC-130 gunships. Several U.S. military aircraft left bases in Britain on Wednesday morning heading toward the tanker, according to flight-tracking sites. The ship had been sailing northeast in the Atlantic in Iceland’s exclusive economic zone and near that of Britain, according to ship-tracking data from MarineTraffic.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement Wednesday that the Marinera had made “a desperate and failed attempt to escape justice.” She commended the Coast Guard for pursuing it “across the high seas and through treacherous storms.”

At a news briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that members of the Marinera crew — which had sailed the vessel away from the Coast Guard’s first boarding attempt last month — could face legal action.

“They will be brought to the United States for such prosecution, if necessary,” Leavitt said.

The seizing of the tanker signals that the United States intends to maintain its partial blockade on Venezuelan oil after capturing the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, on Saturday in a stunning military operation in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. Revenue from oil sales powers Venezuela’s economy, and squeezing it would put pressure on Maduro’s successor, Delcy Rodríguez.

Trump has claimed that Venezuela will hand over tens of millions of barrels of oil to the United States. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Wednesday that the United States intended to oversee the sale of Venezuela’s oil production “indefinitely.”

In another sign of continuing pressure, the Coast Guard on Wednesday intercepted a second oil tanker. The ship, called the M Sophia, was not flying a valid national flag, making it liable to be boarded, according to a U.S. official. The International Maritime Organization said the ship’s flag state was unknown.

Noem posted a video on social media showing the boarding of the ship, which The New York Times verified was the M Sophia. The footage showed a helicopter hovering near the tanker’s deck as armed men descended and moved toward the bridge.

According to TankerTrackers.com and Kpler, two companies that track global oil shipments, the M Sophia was loaded with about 1.8 million to 2 million barrels of Venezuelan crude.

The tanker has carried Venezuelan oil for years, often sailing under the false identity Varada Blessing, the name of a decommissioned vessel, when picking up those cargoes before transporting them to China, according to TankerTrackers.com. The ship has also carried Russian and Iranian oil to China, according to Kpler.

The U.S. Southern Command said in a statement that the Coast Guard would escort the ship to the United States for “final disposition.” The Treasury Department had placed the ship under sanctions last January for its previous involvement in the Russian oil trade. But U.S. authorities did not have a warrant to take possession of the vessel, according to a U.S. official.

That was in contrast to the Marinera, which a federal magistrate judge had issued a seizure warrant for last month, based on the vessel’s history of transporting Iranian oil for groups linked to terrorism.

Both ships are part of a so-called shadow fleet that has transported oil for Russia, Iran or Venezuela in violation of sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries, according to Kpler and TankerTrackers.com. The United States has cracked down on them since Trump last month ordered a “complete blockade” on oil tankers under sanctions going to and from Venezuela.

Russia’s Ministry of Transport said in a statement Wednesday that it had lost contact with the Marinera, and that U.S. forces had boarded it outside the territorial waters of any state.

The Russian ministry said the ship had received a temporary registration in the national ship registry on Dec. 24, adding that in accordance with the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, “no state has the right to use force against vessels duly registered in the jurisdictions of other states.” The United States has not ratified the convention but generally recognizes its provisions as customary law.

At least four other oil tankers that operated in Venezuelan waters in recent weeks have similarly switched to Russian flags, according to an official Russian vessel registry. The U.S. crackdown has led some in Russia to call for more action.

“An attack on a Russian-registered ship is an attack on the Russian territory, from the legal perspective,” said Oleg Tsaryov, a pro-Russia Ukrainian politician who lives in Moscow and said he knew the owner of the Marinera. “It’s a real shame that the Russian forces have not reacted.”

The Marinera has a crew of Russian and Ukrainian sailors, Tsaryov said in an interview.

The seizure of the ship, which came on a Russian holiday, was met with a muted response from Moscow. The Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling on the United States to “ensure humane and dignified treatment” of Russians aboard the vessel and to respect their rights and interests. The Kremlin did not comment on the episode.

The tepid response comes as Russia invests in improving relations with Trump, who has been leading an effort to broker an end to the war in Ukraine. Still, some Russian lawmakers criticized the United States for the seizure.

Andrei Klishas, a member of parliament, accused Washington of engaging in “outright piracy on the high seas” for carrying out a “law enforcement operation” that resulted in the killings of several dozen people in Venezuela.

Alexei Zhuravlev, the deputy chair of the defense committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, said the seizure of a Russian-flagged ship “could be classified as an illegal crossing of our border, in other words, a full-fledged military invasion of Russia.”

A U.S. official said that federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations, the department’s law enforcement arm, were planning to board the vessel and interview the crew.