The moment when the Americans capture a Venezuelan oil tanker. Caracas denounces “international piracy”
The US attorney general has released footage of the moment US forces boarded an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela under sanctions, as the Maduro regime denounces the operation as “international piracy”.
PHOTO Video capture X / Kagan.Dunlap @Kagan_M_Dunlap
US forces have seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela in a major escalation of Donald Trump's four-month pressure campaign against South American dictator Nicolás Maduro, whose government has described the action as “an act of international piracy”.
Pam Bondi, the US Attorney General, published on X images of the moment of capture. The blurry, unclassified 45-second video shows US forces descending from a helicopter directly onto the tanker.
In a statement accompanying the images, Bondi said the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and the US Coast Guard, with support from the Department of Defense, “executed a warrant to seize an oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran”writes The Guardian.
She said the vessel was by “more years” under US sanctions because of “his involvement in an illegal oil transportation network that supports foreign terrorist organizations”.
Source X / Kagan.Dunlap @Kagan_M_Dunlap
“An Act of International Piracy”
The Venezuelan government stated in its statement that this capture “constitutes open robbery and an act of international piracy.”
The document continues: “Under these conditions, the real 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.”
Earlier, speaking at a rally in Caracas, Maduro urged citizens to behave “warriors” and be prepared “to break the teeth of the North American empire, if necessary”.
Maduro has been in power since 2013, when he succeeded Hugo Chávez after his death from cancer. Widely regarded as the fraudulent winner of last year's presidential election, Maduro has clung to power by unleashing a wave of repression that has forced Edmundo González, the apparent winner of the 2024 vote, into exile in Spain.
Reward for catching Maduro
Since August, the US has placed a $50 million bounty on Maduro's head, launched the largest naval deployment in the Caribbean since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and carried out a series of deadly airstrikes on suspected drug-trafficking vessels, killing more than 80.
On Tuesday, two US fighter jets flew over the Gulf of Venezuela for about 40 minutes. The aircraft flew just north of Maracaibo, one of Venezuela's most populous cities.
Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, and although years of mismanagement and corruption have severely damaged the oil industry, oil exports remain the country's main source of income. The main customer is China.
