The U.S. military has seized one more tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
On the 20th (local time), Kristi Noem, Minister of the Department of Homeland Security, said on her X (formerly Twitter), "Early this morning before dawn, the U.S. Coast Guard, with support from the Ministry of National Defense, seized a tanker that last berthed in Venezuela."
Minister Noem added, "The United States will continue to track the illicit movement of sanctioned crude oil—funding for narcoterrorism—in this region."
Earlier, according to Reuters and other foreign media, the operation in international waters near Venezuela was led by the U.S. Coast Guard and joined by the Navy and several federal agencies.
This comes 10 days after the U.S. military seized the sanctioned tanker "The Skipper" on the 10th. It is the first since U.S. President Donald Trump on the 16th designated the Maduro regime as a "foreign terrorist organization" (FTO).
The New York Times (NYT) said the ship is the Panama-flagged "Centuries" and is not included on the publicly managed list of sanctioned tankers maintained by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Venezuelan oil industry officials said the ship is owned by a China-based oil trading company and has a record of transporting Venezuelan crude to Chinese refineries.