The US Coast Guard on Sunday intercepted an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela, marking the second such operation over the weekend and the third in less than a week.
A US official said the vessel was part of what Washington describes as Venezuela’s illegal sanctions-evasion network.
“The United States Coast Guard is in active pursuit of a sanctioned dark fleet vessel,” the official said. “It is flying a false flag and is subject to a judicial seizure order.”
Officials confirmed that the tanker was operating under US sanctions.
The White House has not yet commented publicly on the latest interception.
The seizure follows an announcement last week by US President Donald Trump of what he termed a “blockade” on all sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuela.
The move forms part of an intensified pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
That campaign has included an expanded US military presence in the region and more than two dozen military strikes on vessels in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea near the South American nation. At least 100 people have reportedly been killed in those attacks.
Speaking in a television interview on Sunday, the Director of the White House’s National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett, said the first two tankers seized were operating on the black market and supplying oil to countries already under sanctions.
“And so I don’t think people in the US need to be worried that prices are going to rise because of these seizures,” Hassett told CBS’s Face the Nation. “There are only a couple of ships, and they were black-market vessels.”