U.S. plans to interdict tanker carrying Venezuelan oil, days after Maduro’s capture

Washington — U.S. forces plan to intercept a runaway tanker that historically carried Venezuelan crude oil and has been sanctioned by the Treasury Department, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the plans.

Since last month, U.S. forces have been pursuing the Marinera, an oil tanker formerly known as the Bella 1, as the United States continues its pressure campaign against Venezuela. Since September, the United States has continued to tighten the screw, accusing the government of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of using several ships to transport drugs north to American shores.

Two U.S. intelligence officials also said Venezuelan officials considered placing armed military personnel aboard the tanker — disguising them as civilians for defense purposes — as well as Soviet-era man-portable air defense systems. The discussions took place before capture Maduro and his wife by U.S. special forces on Friday and into the early hours of Saturday morning, officials told CBS News.

The two officials familiar with plans to seize Marinera said the United States preferred to seize the ship rather than sink it and said the operation could be similar to that carried out last month when U.S. Marines and special operations forces working with the U.S. Coast Guard seized the Skipper, a large Guyana-flagged oil tanker, after the vessel left port in Venezuela.

The Coast Guard attempted to board the tanker last month, after the Justice Department obtained a seizure warrant based on the vessel’s prior involvement in the Iranian oil trade, a U.S. official previously said.

Maduro has rejected U.S. allegations about how the ships are used and instead accuses the United States of plundering Venezuelan resources under the cover of law enforcement. The latest confrontation is part of a series of US actions that include charging Maduro and his wife with narcoterrorism. US strikes on several ships killed more than 100 people in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

The Marinera was a Panama-flagged vessel and was sanctioned for its prior involvement in the Iranian oil trade by the Treasury Department in 2024 under former President Joe Biden, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. But now the ship is sailing under the Russian flag, which could complicate sensitive negotiations between the United States and Russia over ending the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

The Russian shipping register indicates that the tanker left Sochi, off the west coast of the Black Sea. The New York Times reported that the Russian government had formally asked the United States to stop any attempts to interdict the ship.

Contacted by CBS News on Monday, no response was returned from the White House, Pentagon or State Department. The Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., also did not respond to requests for comment.

The two U.S. officials with knowledge of U.S. military operational planning said the interdiction mission could take place as early as this week, but that like any Defense Department project, the operation could ultimately be suspended. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss national security issues.

Like the Marinera, The captain was also sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2022 for his alleged role in an oil smuggling ring that helped fund Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group.

Ships like the Marinera, the Skipper and the Centuries, another tanker in the United States seized as of last month, they are all part of a so-called shadow fleet of ships that illegally transport oil from sanctioned countries like Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

President Trump unilaterally imposed a “total and complete blockade” of Venezuelan oil tankers already sanctioned on December 16.

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “It will only get worse, and the shock they will experience will be like nothing they have ever seen before – until the moment they return to the United States of America all the oil, land and other assets they stole from us before.”

On Monday, The New York Times reported that at least 16 tankers had attempted to evade the U.S. naval blockade by hiding their geographic location or turning off their transmission beacons.

If the Marinera were captured by U.S. forces, it would be the third tanker seized by the United States since its campaign against Venezuela began in early September.