As part of Operation Southern Spear, the United States enacted a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers traveling in and out of Venezuela on 17 December 2025, after placing additional sanctions affecting oil trade with the country. A week before announcing the blockade, the US seized the oil tanker Skipper in the Caribbean Sea off the coast of Venezuela on 10 December, and then focused its military efforts on intercepting and pursuing other tankers trading with Venezuela. On 7 January 2026, the United States boarded and seized the Russian oil tanker Marinera (formerly Bella 1) in the Atlantic near Iceland and the Panama-flagged M Sophia in the Caribbean Sea.
Skipper had been sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury in 2022 for alleged involvement in an oil trafficking shadow fleet of vessels involving the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. Marinera and Sophia had also been sanctioned by the Treasury Department.
The Venezuelan government condemned the seizure of Skipper, describing it as an "act of international piracy". UN Security Council members urged restraint and some UN representatives condemned the naval blockade, and analysts said US actions tested maritime law.
Background
On 7 August 2025, the United States Department of Justice raised a reward for the arrest of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro to US$50 million; Maduro was indicted by a US federal court in 2020 and is accused of narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine to the United States. The Trump administration accuses the Maduro government of flooding the US with drugs, and has pressured Maduro to step down. Over the following months, the United States Navy conducted its largest naval deployment in the Caribbean Sea since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. As a part of the naval deployment, the US began launching air strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea in September. By 10 December, the United States had carried out 22 air strikes that killed at least 87 people.
The Venezuelan economy is heavily reliant on oil exports. Venezuelan oil is extracted and exported by Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the state-owned oil company. Oil production has significantly decreased since the early 2000s due to corruption, PDVSA mismanagement, and sanctions implemented on the country by the United States. In March 2025, United States president Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14245 that placed a 25% tariff on any country that imported Venezuelan oil due to Venezuela being "very hostile". In August, Venezuelan defense minister Vladimir Padrino López announced that the Bolivarian Navy of Venezuela would be deployed to protect Venezuela's main oil hub. Maduro said in October 2025 that the US wanted to seize Venezuela's oil and that the Bolivarian Army of Venezuela had been mobilized to repel a land invasion.
The Russian tanker Seahorse, sanctioned by the European Union and the UK, attempting to deliver naphtha (a product necessary to help export Venezuela's heavy crude) to Venezuela was forced several times by to turn back towards Cuba, although it eventually reached Venezuela in November 2025.
Interdiction activity Skipper (Adisa) Skipper, previously named Adisa (IMO number 9304667), is owned by Triton Navigation Corp., based in the Marshall Islands and operated by Nigeria-based Thomarose Global Ventures. At 310,309 DWT, it was built by Imabari Shipbuilding at Saijō, Ehime, Japan, in 2005 as yard number 2507, named Toyo and managed by the Japanese NYK Line. The supertanker is a Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), making it too large for some ports.
In November 2022, the United States Department of the Treasury placed sanctions against Adisa, for allegedly being involved in an oil smuggling network that financed both the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. The network was led by a Ukrainian citizen living in Switzerland, Viktor Sergiyovitch Artemov, who was sanctioned by Office of Foreign Assets Control. Artemov was a Russian oil magnate and was accused by the US of coordinating a global Iranian "oil smuggling network" with the help of Triton Navigation.
According to a New York Times analysis of satellite imagery and data from TankerTrackers.com, Skipper issued false transponder readings from October to December 2025 that falsified the ship's location. TankerTrackers.com co-founder Samir Madani referred to Skipper as being part of a "global dark fleet" of tankers that falsify their location information. Moments before the seizure, the tanker was flying the Guyanese flag, despite not being registered in that country. Reportedly, Skipper docked at least twice in Iran since July 2025, and in Hong Kong in August 2025.
Seizure On 10 December, ten Maritime Security Response Team personnel from the United States Coast Guard (USCG) and ten special operations personnel from the United States Marine Corps (USMC) aboard two helicopters launched from USS Gerald R. Ford boarded and took control of Skipper shortly after it left a Venezuelan port.
Skipper had left Puerto José in Venezuela on 4 December with about 1.8 million barrels of crude oil from PDVSA. Soon after its departure, near Curaçao, the tanker offloaded a portion of its oil to another ship, Neptune 6, which was en route to Cuba. Skipper then turned east, headed towards Asia. The oil tanker was in international waters between Grenada and Trinidad when it was boarded by US forces.
According to US attorney general Pam Bondi and anonymous US officials, Skipper was seized in accordance with a seizure warrant issued two weeks earlier by a federal judge for allegedly transporting "sanctioned oil". The ship was seized on the day the warrant was set to expire. Anonymous US officials stated to The New York Times that the sealed warrant was issued "because of the ship's past activities smuggling Iranian oil, not because of links to the Maduro government", while Bondi stated it had transported both Venezuelan and Iranian crude.
Bondi posted a short video excerpt of the seizure on X, adding that it was "conducted safely and securely" and was part of an investigation "to prevent the transport of sanctioned oil". According to The New York Times, three anonymous United States government officials said Skipper crew did not resist, there were no casualties, and they expected that more seizures would occur in the following weeks as "part of the administration's efforts to weaken Mr. Maduro's government by undermining its oil market".
The US planned additional seizures of vessels transporting Venezuelan crude.
Centuries On 20 December, the USCG boarded a second ship, the Panama-flagged Centuries (IMO number 9206310), carrying 1.8 million barrels of crude oil off the coast of Venezuela, reported as "intercepted" by Reuters. According to The Washington Post, neither the vessel nor its owner are sanctioned entities, and an unnamed source said the boarding was based on a history of the vessel transporting oil to China, and a "right to visit" law that "allows a warship to board and inspect a vessel it suspects is engaging in illicit activity". Permission to board was obtained from Panama, which later stated that the vessel had violated Panamanian maritime law by turning off its transponder while sailing with crude. Centuries had a history of faking its location. As of 22 December, it was not clear if the vessel would be released or when. In February, the ship was reported to be moored at the Galveston Offshore Lightering Area.
Marinera (Bella 1)
The USCG had been pursuing a third VLCC, Bella 1 (), since 20 December 2025, from the Caribbean through the Atlantic Ocean. The tanker had previously transported Iranian oil, and was en route to load Venezuelan oil purchased by a company associated with the recently-sanctioned Panamanian, Pedro Carretero. The vessel was sanctioned by the US for "allegedly carrying black-market Iranian oil on behalf of ... Hezbollah and the Houthis" and "has links to the Quds Force". The tanker is owned by Louis Marine Shipholding Enterprises, a Turkish company, sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2024. The US had a seizure warrant for Bella 1, which had a history of spoofing its location, was sailing without a valid flag, and did not submit to boarding.
Heading for Venezuela with no cargo, the ship's crew resisted boarding on 20 December and the vessel made a U-turn with the USCG in pursuit. The USCG requires a Maritime Special Response Team to intercept a hostile ship. Officials told The Wall Street Journal the team was in place, but because the tanker was old and not carrying oil, "there has been some debate within the Coast Guard and the Navy over whether the tanker should be captured".
A Russian flag was painted on the vessel reported on 31 December in what US officials said was "an apparent attempt to claim protection from Moscow" although "international law stipulates that ships aren't permitted to change their flags mid-voyage unless there is a change of ownership or registration". On that day, Russia sent a request through diplomatic channels to ask the United States to stop its pursuit of the tanker. By 1 January 2026, the vessel appeared on the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping under a new name, Marinera, complicating the seizure matter. On 6 January, it was reported that Marinera was being escorted by a Russian submarine and a navy vessel. On that day, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced it was monitoring the situation, with US officials confirming Russia had asked the US to stop the pursuit. The tanker appeared bound on a voyage towards a Russian port in the Arctic.
The United States European Command (EUCOM) announced on 7 January 2026, that Marinera had been seized by the USCG cutter in the Atlantic Ocean waters between Iceland and Scotland, traveling northward and eastward; an unnamed US official told The Washington Post that the vessel was secure and the Russians had not interfered with the seizure. US military aircraft and special operation forces, including Navy SEALs, were reported to have been prepositioned in Scotland to board the vessel, which was boarded by helicopter. Boeing P-8 Poseidon, Lockheed AC-130J and Pilatus U-28A Draco aircraft assisted the helicopter boarding. The United Kingdom acted as a supporting force by contributing a number of Royal Air Force (RAF) surveillance aircraft to monitor and assist the seizure, while the replenishment vessel RFA Tideforce was provided to support US vessels. Icelandic media reported that the seizure happened in international waters within Iceland's exclusive economic zone, with the Icelandic Coast Guard monitoring the vessel but not intervening in the seizure.
Russia accused the US of "outright piracy" in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and demanded that Russian members of the crew be repatriated. The Russian Ministry of Transport stated that previously the vessel had received a temporary permit to sail under the Russian flag, in accordance with both Russian and "international" law. US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem justified the interception by claiming that the Marinera was "responsible for transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran". The US had previously cited the alleged statelessness of the vessel as justification for the seizure. Unnamed US officials indicated that the seizure was meant to deter other sanctioned tankers from changing their flag to the Russian flag to evade sanctions. Marinera was described by the British Secretary of State for Defence John Healey as being part of "shadow fleet activity", which he also called "a sanctioned, stateless vessel".