Venezuela US pursues suspect oil tanker after seizing second ship

US Coast Guard officials said yesterday that they were tracking an oil tanker in international waters close to Venezuela, marking the second such action over the weekend - and the third in the past week.

- Marina Dunbar

The “dark fleet vessel” was “part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion”, a US official told Reuters, adding: “It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order”.

Donald Trump has recently declared a “blockade” targeting all sanctioned oil tankers traveling into or out of Venezuela.

The US president’s campaign to increase pressure on Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has involved a strengthened American military presence in the region, along with more than two dozen military strikes against vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea which have resulted in at least 100 deaths.

White House national economic council director Kevin Hassett said on CBS that the first two tankers taken into custody had been operating illegally and supplying oil to countries under sanctions.

However, the vessel boarded on Saturday is not on a list of entities under US sanctions that is publicly maintained by the Treasury Department.