US intercepts sixth Venezuelan oil tanker as part of Caribbean quarantine

Antonio María Delgado, Miami Herald on Jan 15, 2026

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U.S. forces have seized another tanker linked to Venezuelan oil exports in the Caribbean, U.S. officials said, as Washington intensifies a sweeping campaign to enforce sanctions and choke off what it describes as illicit petroleum trafficking from Venezuela.

The latest operation, carried out before dawn Thursday, involved U.S. Marines and sailors launching from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford to board the motor tanker Veronica, according to a statement posted Thursday by the U.S. Southern Command on X. The boarding was conducted “without incident,” the command said.

The seizure was part of Operation Southern Spear, a multiagency effort launched last year to combat Latin American drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations, with particular emphasis on Venezuela’s Soles cartel.

SouthCom said the Veronica was operating in defiance of President Donald Trump’s quarantine on sanctioned vessels carrying Venezuelan oil in the Caribbean.

“The only oil leaving Venezuela will be oil that is coordinated properly and lawfully,” the command said in its X post, adding that the operation was backed by the full strength of a U.S. Navy Amphibious Ready Group, including the USS Iwo Jima, USS San Antonio and USS Fort Lauderdale.

The seizure marks at least the sixth vessel targeted in recent weeks for transporting sanctioned Venezuelan crude or for having done so previously.

The stepped-up enforcement comes ahead of a planned meeting between Trump and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, underscoring the growing pressure Washington is applying to Venezuela’s oil trade as part of a broader strategy to isolate sanctioned actors and disrupt transnational criminal networks.

Last week U.S. forces intercepted another tanker, the Olina, also in Caribbean waters, in an operation coordinated between the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, Southern Command said. Marines were again deployed by helicopter from the USS Gerald R. Ford to conduct the boarding.

In a posting on X, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Olina was part of a so-called “ghost fleet” of tankers suspected of transporting embargoed oil while evading detection through flag changes, ship-to-ship transfers or clandestine routes. She said the vessel had departed Venezuela before being intercepted.

The Pentagon has confirmed several other recent seizures, including the tanker Marinera — previously known as Bella 1 — which U.S. forces tracked from the Caribbean into the North Atlantic during a three-week pursuit. The U.S. Coast Guard has also intercepted the Sophia, another sanctioned tanker that Washington says was operating illegally in international waters.

U.S. defense officials have emphasized that Operation Southern Spear is not a temporary measure. The campaign will continue, they said, as long as necessary to curb illicit maritime activity, enforce sanctions and, in Washington’s words, “restore security in the Western Hemisphere.”