The United States is intensifying its pressure against the Nicolás Maduro regime with an unprecedented strategy: the interception and possible seizure of dozens of oil tankers that transport Venezuelan crude oil illicitly.
As confirmed to Reuters by sources familiar with the operation, Washington has already prepared a list of sanctioned vessels that could be detained in the coming weeks.
The White House put together a list of sanctioned oil tankers that includes vessels that have also transported Iranian crude. The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security planned these operations for months, simultaneously with the increase in the US military presence in the southern Caribbean.
The sources consulted by the international agency assure that Pentagon forces monitor the oil tankers in real time both on the high seas and in Venezuelan ports, waiting for them to cross international waters to intervene.
Maritime data reveals that more than 30 oil tankers could come under new US sanctions. All these vessels are linked to PDVSA‘s oil trade and operate within the extensive “shadow fleet” that moves sanctioned crude oil to the Caribbean and Asia.
Criminal lawyer Rick Díaz, an expert in drug trafficking issues, described this strategy as “historic” and part of systematic pressure.
“This is a psychological and economic war. They did not take that ship because we need the oil. It is so that people know that if you are with the Maduro regime, we are going to injure you here, there, above, below,” Díaz explained in statements to Informativo USA.
The specialist compared the Trump administration’s strategy to an “anaconda” that progressively surrounds the Venezuelan regime: “Mr. Maduro’s entourage is circulating. He is doing it emotionally, economically, with sanctions, spiritually, militarily.”
This maritime offensive is in addition to the recent sanctions imposed on three nephews of Cilia Flores, Maduro’s wife, who were reinstated to the OFAC list after having been exchanged during the Biden government for three Americans.
Díaz predicted that the Maduro regime faces its last months: “If this Mr. Maduro and Diosdado Cabello had two fingers in front, they would be negotiating his departure and his survival. What he has left are days.”
