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Over the past two days, at least 16 oil tankers affected by U.S. sanctions seem to have tried to evade a significant American naval blockade regarding Venezuela’s energy exports, partly by concealing their actual locations or disabling their transmission signals. For several weeks, satellite imagery had detected these vessels docked at Venezuelan ports, according to an analysis from The New York Times. However, by Saturday, following the capture of President Nicholas Maduro by U.S. forces, all of these ships had vanished from those sites. Four tankers have been tracked via satellite as they sailed eastward, approximately 30 miles from shore, utilizing false ship names and misrepresenting their locations, a tactic referred to as “spoofing.” These four vessels departed without the interim government’s consent, based on internal communications from Venezuela’s state-run oil company and information from two individuals in the oil sector, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation. Their exits could be interpreted as an initial act of defiance against interim President Delcy Rodríguez’s authority. The remaining 12 vessels are not transmitting any signals and have not been found in new imagery.
President Trump proclaimed a “complete blockade” on sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers on December 16, an initiative that Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on Sunday was one of the largest “quarantines” in contemporary history, effectively “paralyzing” the regime’s revenue-generating capability. Notably, the blockade has allowed oil shipped by American company Chevron to the U.S. Gulf Coast to proceed. To date, U.S. forces have intervened with three tankers attempting to transport Venezuelan oil. One, named Skipper, was intercepted and seized by the Coast Guard on December 10, while en route to China. A second vessel, the Centuries, was stopped and boarded but not taken on December 20, and a third, previously known as Bella 1 and now called Marinera, is still being pursued by U.S. forces. In response to inquiries from The Times, a U.S. official mentioned on Sunday that “the quarantine is currently concentrating on sanctioned shadow vessels that are transporting sanctioned” Venezuelan oil.
The evasive measures of the tankers seem to be based on deception but also on saturation. At least three of the vessels departed Venezuelan waters closely together, suggesting some level of coordination. “The only genuine method for oil-laden tankers to break through a naval blockade is to overwhelm it with outbound vessels,” noted Samir Madani, the co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, a site that tracks shipping activities and identified multiple vessels in satellite images. The tanker Bertha, among several that appears to have attempted to bypass the U.S. naval blockade surrounding Venezuela, was documented in Venezuela last week. Its side displays the name Ekta, which belongs to a decommissioned vessel. Credit…TankerTrackers.com.
The whereabouts and purpose of the 12 tankers that ceased broadcasting signals and left port since Saturday remain uncertain. However, Venezuela faces increasing pressure to sell its crude oil. Due to the blockade, its storage facilities are nearing their limits, and halting production presents a risk to both oil reservoirs and infrastructure. The ships that departed without authorization were chartered by oil traders Alex Saab and Ramón Carretero, based on internal data from the state-owned oil company and the two oil-industry sources. Both traders are under U.S. sanctions for being business associates of Mr. Maduro’s family. Mr. Saab was incarcerated in the U.S. in 2021, but was exchanged in 2023 by the Biden administration for Americans detained in Venezuela.
Fifteen out of the 16 vessels that were operational on Saturday were sanctioned by the U.S. for transporting Iranian and Russian oil. They would “have to decide which is the lesser risk — to flee while they might see an opportunity to escape or remain and face the potential of future boardings or incursions by U.S. forces in Venezuelan waters,” stated David Tannenbaum, a previous sanctions compliance officer at the U.S. Treasury. The strategies employed to circumvent the sanctions form part of a modern arsenal of deceit utilized by a loosely affiliated group of illicit tankers known as “the ghost fleet.” These tactics include broadcasting and painting on the hulls names of decommissioned vessels and spoofing locations to falsely indicate their positions. The Aquila II, loaded with crude oil, transmitted a signal identifying itself as the Cape Balder and spoofed its coordinates to appear in the Baltic Sea. The Bertha utilized the alias Ekta and claimed to be located in Nigeria. The Veronica III adopted the name DS Vector and likewise pretended to be situated off the coast of Nigeria.
As of Sunday, a ship known as the Vesna, operating under the false name Priya, was already hundreds of miles from Venezuela. TankerTrackers.com detected it in satellite imagery, and The Times confirmed it was heading northeast in the Atlantic Ocean, about 25 miles west of Grenada. Unlike the other three vessels tracked in the imagery, it did not seem to be carrying crude oil, which allowed it to maintain a faster pace. Tyler Pager contributed reporting from Washington. Dmitriy Khavin contributed graphics editing. Note: The International Maritime Organization provides an IMO number, a permanent identification that is associated with a vessel throughout its lifespan, unlike a ship’s name, which can frequently change. The vessels discussed in this article are Aquila II (9281152), Bertha (9292163), Centuries (9206310), Skipper (9304667), Marinera (9230880, previously known as Bella 1), Veronica III (9326055), and Vesna (9233349).
Published: 2026-01-05 12:01:00
source: www.nytimes.com
