Dramatic US government-released footage shows the moment Coast Guard boarding teams fast-roped from helicopters onto the deck of a two-million-barrel oil tanker in international waters off Venezuela, seizing the vessel in a highly unusual military-style operation that has sharply escalated tensions with Nicolas Maduro’s government.
President Donald Trump confirmed the takeover on Wednesday afternoon. Speaking to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House, he described the ship as “a large tanker, very large — largest one ever seized, actually,” adding that it had been taken “for a very good reason.” When asked what would happen to the cargo of heavy crude, Mr Trump replied: “Well, we keep it, I guess.”
The vessel, identified as the Skipper (formerly M/T Adisa), had sailed from Venezuela around December 2 carrying roughly 2 million barrels of oil produced by state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA). According to internal PDVSA shipping documents seen by multiple outlets, approximately half the cargo was bound for Cubametales, Cuba’s state oil importer.
The tanker has been under US sanctions since 2022 for allegedly belonging to a shadow fleet that smuggled Iranian oil on behalf of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah, a network the Treasury Department says was orchestrated by a Switzerland-based Ukrainian trader.
The boarding was executed by US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDETs) operating from the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford, which arrived in the Caribbean last month as part of the largest American naval deployment to the region in decades.
Video posted by Attorney General Pam Bondi shows a Navy MH-60S Seahawk helicopter hovering just feet above the tanker’s deck while armed Coast Guard personnel slide down ropes in rapid succession. Later clips show the boarding team, rifles raised, moving methodically through the ship’s superstructure and bridge.
A US official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed the operation was conducted under domestic law-enforcement authority rather than wartime rules of engagement, making the use of an aircraft carrier and fast-rope insertion from military helicopters exceptionally rare for a merchant-vessel seizure.
Venezuela’s foreign ministry responded within hours, condemning the action as “an act of international piracy and blatant theft.” A lengthy statement declared: “With this criminal assault, the true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed… It has always been about our natural resources, our oil, our energy — resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people.”
The seizure is the most direct move yet in the Trump administration’s renewed “maximum pressure” campaign against Maduro, who remains indicted in the United States on narcoterrorism charges.
Washington has steadily tightened the noose on Venezuela’s oil trade since 2020, driving PDVSA into an elaborate web of shell companies, ship-to-ship transfers, and “dark fleet” tankers that switch off their transponders to evade tracking. Allies Russia and Iran, both heavily sanctioned themselves, have provided critical technical and financial lifelines.
The timing has intensified concerns of a slide toward open conflict. The operation came one day after two US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets flew over the Gulf of Venezuela in what appeared to be the closest American warplanes have come to Venezuelan airspace since the crisis began. President Trump has repeatedly hinted that ground operations could follow but has not elaborated.
Critics in Congress immediately challenged the official rationale. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the tanker seizure “blows apart the administration’s cover story that this military buildup is only about stopping drugs.” He called it “further evidence that the real goal is regime change by force.”
Since early September, US warships and aircraft have carried out at least 22 lethal strikes on suspected smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 87 people, according to tallies by human-rights monitors. Some strikes have drawn allegations of excessive force, including a follow-up attack on survivors clinging to wreckage.
Naval historian Vincent P O’Hara described Wednesday described the boarding of a merchant vessel by US forces as “extremely unusual and highly provocative,” warning that even a brief pause in maritime traffic could deliver a crippling blow to Venezuela’s already-collapsed economy.
As both sides exchange increasingly bellicose rhetoric and the US maintains a ring of warships within striking distance, the dramatic images of American commandos dropping onto the Skipper’s deck have become the defining symbol of a crisis that many now fear is only one miscalculation away from war.
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