OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
8:05 AM – Thursday, December 11, 2025
The United States Government has seized a Venezuelan oil tanker, President Donald Trump announced.
“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela. Large tanker, very large. Largest one ever seized actually. And, other things are happening. So you’ll be seeing that later. And you’ll be talking about that later with some other people,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday. “It was seized for a very good reason.”
When asked what would happen to the oil on the ship, the president answered, “Well we keep it, I guess. I assume we’re going to keep the oil.”
The operation was led by the Coast Guard and supported by the Navy, according to a U.S. official who spoke to the Associated Press.
Attorney General Pam Bondi posted a video of the seizure on X, announcing the operation.
“Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran,” she wrote.
“For multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” Bondi continued. “This seizure, completed off the coast of Venezuela, was conducted safely and securely—and our investigation alongside the Department of Homeland Security to prevent the transport of sanctioned oil continues.”
The tanker, called “The Skipper,” according to sources who spoke to CBS News, was off Venezuela’s coast and had just left port when the operation began at about 6 a.m. on Wednesday. Two helicopters, 10 Coast Guard members, 10 Marines, and special operation forces were involved in the seizure.
The helicopters were launched from the USS Gerald Ford, the most advanced aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet, which was sent to the Caribbean Sea last month.
The boarding team was composed of the Coast Guard’s Maritime Security and Response Team, an elite maritime-interdiction unit based in Chesapeake, Virginia, CBS News reported.
The Skipper, a 20-year-old vessel, had been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2022 for alleged ties to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah. It was previously named The Toyo in 2005, according to Maritime data.
The Venezuelan government “strongly denounces and repudiates what constitutes a shameless robbery and an act of international piracy.”
“In these circumstances, the real reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been exposed. It’s not migration. It’s not drug trafficking. It’s not democracy. It’s not human rights. It was always about our natural wealth, our oil, our energy, the resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement.
The Trump administration has led a military campaign against alleged drug-smuggling vessels originating from Venezuela since September, striking down at least 22 vessels and killing over 80 people. Trump has also threatened to expand operations onto Venezuelan soil as the U.S. has been building military forces around the country.
Trump has long been a critic of socialist Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, whom he believes to be an illegitimate dictator.
“His days are numbered,” Trump said of Maduro in an interview this week with Politico, declining to explain exactly what his administration would do to enact regime change.
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