US Southern Command said in a social media post that US forces apprehended the Motor Vessel Sagitta “without incident” and that the tanker was operating in defiance of President Donald Trump’s “established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean.”
The military command did not say whether the US Coast Guard took control of the tanker as has been the case in prior seizures. Both the Pentagon and Southern Command said they had nothing to add when asked for more details.
The Sagitta is a Liberian-flagged tanker and its registration says it is owned and managed by a company in Hong Kong. The ship last transmitted its location more than two months ago when exiting the Baltic Sea in northern Europe, the AP reported.
The tanker was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department under an executive order related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The post from US Southern Command indicated the ship had taken oil from Venezuela. It said the capture of the tanker “demonstrates our resolve to ensure that the only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully.”
Since the US ouster of Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid on January 3, the Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s oil products.