Overview
- Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the U.S. Coast Guard, backed by the Defense Department, boarded the vessel in international waters early December 20 after it departed a Venezuelan port.
- The ship was identified as the supertanker Centuries, sailing under Panama's flag with nearly 2 million barrels of Venezuelan crude reportedly sold to a Chinese company.
- Reuters and AFP reported the tanker was not on the U.S. Treasury blacklist, while the White House argued it operated as part of Venezuela’s shadow fleet under a foreign flag.
- Caracas condemned the interdiction as a serious act of international piracy and said it will take the case to the U.N. Security Council.
- The operation followed President Donald Trump’s December 17 order to enforce a blockade on sanctioned oil tankers, after a December 10 seizure in the region signaled stepped-up interdictions.