US Oil Piracy Continues as Fifth Tanker Tied to Venezuela Seized
The US has purloined over $300 million of oil in a month while enforcing a blockade, which UN experts say has "seriously undermined the human rights of the Venezuelan people."
As President Donald Trump geared up for a meeting with fossil fuel executives about plans for them to tap into the "tremendous wealth" of Venezuela's vast oil supply, the US military seized another oil tanker in the Caribbean off the coast of Trinidad on Friday morning.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted unclassified footage from US Southern Command of explosives being deployed and soldiers boarding the vessel Olina on social media.
"As another 'ghost fleet' tanker ship suspected of carrying embargoed oil, this vessel had departed Venezuela attempting to evade US forces," she said. "This is owning the sea."
Olina, which was reportedly carrying around 700,000 barrels of crude, is at least the fifth tanker seized by the military in recent weeks and the third in the last three days after the Trump administration imposed a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers leaving Venezuela in December, a move that has been credited with hastening the country's economic collapse.
Earlier this week, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the US plans to manage Venezuela's oil sales and revenues indefinitely following its illegal operation last weekend to topple and abduct President Nicolás Maduro.
According to the ship-tracking database TankerTrackers.com, the US has “seized five tankers and 6.15 million barrels in the span of a month, with the oil valued at over $300 million."
The US has described Olina and other ships it has seized as part of a "shadow fleet" that uses deceptive tactics—including flying false flags—to secretively transport oil for sanctioned countries, including Venezuela, Russia, and Iran.
The US has justified its blockade of Venezuela's oil, as well as the overthrow of Maduro generally, based on the claim that its government is part of an alleged foreign terrorist organization known as the "Cartel de los Soles."
In late December, a group of United Nations experts condemned the blockade and denounced this justification, stating that the alleged cartel does not exist. The US Department of Justice later acknowledged that the cartel was not an actual organization in its indictment of Maduro this week. Maduro has pleaded not guilty to US narco-terrorism charges.
The group of international experts, which included Ben Saul, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, and Gina Romero, the special rapporteur on freedom of association and assembly, described the blockade as "violating fundamental rules of international law."
“There is no right to enforce unilateral sanctions through an armed blockade,” the experts said, citing the United Nations Charter, which describes blockades without UN Security Council approval as illegal acts of aggression.
They added that “there are serious concerns that the sanctions are unlawful, disproportionate, and punitive under international law, and that they have seriously undermined the human rights of the Venezuelan people."
