The US military has seized another sanctioned oil tanker, the Sophia, in the Caribbean Sea, marking a continuation of aggressive enforcement against vessels accused of transporting illicit oil on behalf of sanctioned regimes, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday.
This action followed the nearly simultaneous seizure of another tanker, the Marinera, previously known as Bella 1, in the North Atlantic after a weeks-long pursuit. US European Command said special forces boarded the Russian-flagged ship under authority of a US federal court warrant for alleged sanction violations.
According to a US Defense Department statement, military units working with the Department of Homeland Security intercepted the Sophia in international waters in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The tanker, described as part of a shadow fleet of ships moving oil in violation of Western sanctions, was stopped without resistance. The US Coast Guard will escort the vessel to a port under US jurisdiction.
Both tankers are believed to be connected to a network of sanctioned shipping often called the shadow fleet: tankers that evade detection and move Venezuelan, Russian and Iranian oil to customers despite Western restrictions. Washington says these operations help fund instability and undermine sanctions regimes.
US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem confirmed that the Sophia and the Marinera had either recently been in Venezuelan ports or were en route there, underscoring the links to Venezuelan crude distribution. In the case of the Marinera, the tanker had previously tried to evade a US blockade, changed its name and adopted a Russian flag while being pursued.
The twin seizures are part of a broader US effort to enforce sanctions and disrupt oil supply chains that Washington says finance hostile activity. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reiterated that the blockade on sanctioned oil ships remains in full effect anywhere in the world.
Russia has protested the seizure of the Marinera, asserting that force cannot be used against a vessel lawfully registered under its flag, a claim that highlights rising geopolitical tensions amid ongoing negotiations over other global conflicts.
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